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DELTA DETOURS Tourism Section
DO THE DELTA Like a Local
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215 Cotton Row, Cleveland, MS 38732 | 662.843.7733
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Publisher: J. Scott Coopwood Editor in Chief: Cindy Coopwood Managing Editor: Taylor Armstrong Director of Production: Pam Parker Director of Special Projects: Kelli Williams Contributing Editors: Maude Schuyler Clay, Lea Margaret Hamilton, Jim “Fish” Michie, Brantley Snipes, Roger Stolle Website: Gregory Braggs Consultant: Samir Husni, Ph.D. Graphic Designers: Sandra Goff, Maggi Mosco, Denton Reed Copy Editor: Suzanne Durfey Contributing Writers: Jim Beaugez, Maude Schuyler Clay, Terri Glazer, Katelyn Hudson, Courtney Ingle, Toni Kinton, Joey Lee, Jim “Fish” Michie, Stephanie Patton, Wade Wineman Photography: Gavin Bird, Ross Group Creative, Rory Doyle, Visit Jackson Account Executives: Joy Bateman, Melanie Dupree, Cristen Hemmins, Kristy Kitchings, Wendy Mize, Ann Nestler, Cadey True Circulation: Lyndsi Naron Accounting Manager: Holly Tharp POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to Delta Magazine, PO Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732
ADVERTISING: For advertising information, please call (662) 843-2700 Delta Magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials or photos and in general does not return them to sender. Photography obtained for editorial usage is owned by Delta Magazine and may not be released for commercial use such as in advertisements and may not be purchased from the magazine for any reason. All editorial and advertising information is taken from sources considered to be authoritative, but the publication cannot guarantee their accuracy. Neither that information nor any opinion expressed on the pages of Delta Magazine in any way constitutes a solicitation for the sale or purchase of securities mentioned. No material in Delta Magazine may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of the publication. Delta Magazine is published bimonthly by Coopwood Magazines, Inc., 125 South Court St., Cleveland, MS 38732-2626. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, MS and additional mailing office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Delta Magazine, PO Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732-0117. Delta Magazine (USPS#022-954)
Delta Magazine is published six times a year by Coopwood Magazines, Inc. EDITORIAL & BUSINESS OFFICE ADDRESSES: Mailing Address: PO Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732 Shipping Address: 125 South Court Street, Cleveland, MS 38732 E-mail: publisher@deltamagazine.com editor@deltamagazine.com
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from the editor
From Doe’s to Dockery: A Delta Weekend elcome to a new year and to a new issue that gives a nod to tourism and travel—both to and from the Delta. This year, we’ve taken a different approach, asking our readers and folks around the region to share their favorite things to see and do when guests are in town. As for Scott and me, we’ve got it pretty down pat. Depending on the group and the occasion, we’ve come up with a couple of fun itineraries for Delta weekends with friends. Scott and I married in 1989 and moved back to Shelby, his hometown, in 1992 to live in a lovely old home he inherited from his mentor and great-uncle, J.W. Thomas. Needless to say, it was a move that confounded many of our friends and family, but I thought of it as a great adventure. Sidenote: About a year prior to our move back to Bolivar County, Scott’s oldest friend, Bill Dossett, who grew up in Beulah, and his new wife, Mimi, from Covington, Louisiana, had also moved back to the area, settling in Cleveland. This helped seal the deal for us—and inspired Bill to declare that the Delta was BYOG—Bring Your Own Girl. What I immediately noticed once we were settled was that when family and friends came to visit, everyone absolutely LOVED it here—from my sister and brother-in-law, who live near Palm Beach, to friends from California, my family from Jackson, and later, our children’s college friends from all over. They are blown away by the history, the culture, the blues, the river, the dinner parties, and Editor Cindy Coopwood, with friends Cathy just about everything that makes up the quirky lifestyle we all enjoy here, from Debutante balls Miller and Jodi Rives, kick off a Delta weekend to arrowhead hunting. at Doe’s. Scott’s knowledge of and love for his homeland (down to every turnrow in Bolivar County) is vast, making him an excellent tour guide, as he loves to plan itineraries for guests who want to explore the area—and I love to plan menus and dinner parties, so a Delta house-party weekend is a lot of fun for us. We had just such a weekend last year when our Oxford friends Cathy and Craig Miller and Jodi and Claude Rives came for a visit. Here are the highlights of our weekend: On Friday, we loaded up and went to Doe’s in Greenville so they could experience the best steaks in the country. Then back to Cleveland for a quick tour of the Coopwood Publishing offices (which includes a recording studio complete with drum kit!), then nightcaps at Bar Fontaine, the rooftop bar at the Cotton House Hotel. Saturday morning, Craig Miller, Scott Coopwood, Jodi Bill Lester, third from right, gave an we had breakfast at home and then headed out to historic Dockery Rives, Cathy Miller, Cindy, and Claude excellent talk to the group at Dockery Rives after an amazing dinner at Doe’s Farms, after which we all explored Farms (home of Charlie Patton, father of the blues), where our friend and executive director of the Dockery Foundation, Bill Eat Place in Greenville. the grounds and outbuildings. Lester, gave a talk about the history and workings of the plantation. We explored the refurbished 1930s-1940s service station and the still-standing cotton gin and other outbuildings, which have a running touch /video screen that tells Dockery’s history. We came back to town, had lunch at Hey Joe’s, and then the guys and girls split up. Scott took the men to see the river, see our cabin, and explore behind the levee, then came back to Cleveland to make a pass through the Grammy Museum. And the girls? We went shopping. Downtown Cleveland has a plethora of options for a day of shopping, including our fantastic flea market, Moonstruck, Craig took a turn on the drums in the studio at the Coopwood Publishing where I often spend hours exploring and where Cathy found a offices. Below, group photo on the perfect vintage dress for a Mardi Gras party for twelve dollars. After rooftop after a nightcap at Bar that, we returned home to rest, recoup, and prep for a simple Fontaine in Cleveland. dinner party with some of our local friends. There was lots of wine, conversation, and most of all—fun. Turn to page 80 to read tips from readers and locals and learn how to “Do the Delta Like a Local.” I hope you enjoy this issue as it kicks off another action-packed year here in the Delta. We look forward to sharing more of the stories, people, historic places, and new ventures that continue to make the Delta the most interesting and the most southern and the most interesting place on earth! DM
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Cindy Coopwood Editor in Chief @cindycoopwood | editor@deltamagazine.com 8 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
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contents JANUARY/FEBRUARY Volume 22, No. 4
58 48 departments RORY DOYLE
32 BOOKS
Reviews of new releases and what Deltans are reading now
36 36 ART
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GAVIN BIRD Storytelling through Mississippi murals
42 MUSIC
CHARLIE MCALEXANDER Celebrating life, love, music, and sports
104 HOME
features
ROSS GROUP CREATIVE
ROSS GROUP CREATIVE
FROM FORGOTTEN TO FOREVER HOME: The rebirth of a once-abandoned Georgian-style home in Greenwood
118 FOOD
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48 A Grateful Return
FAN & JOHNNY’S Cajun-style recipes from Greenwood Chef Taylor Bowen-Ricketts
136 HISTORY
PIRATES OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER In the 18th and 19th centuries, a float down the Mississippi was not to be taken lightly
The circuitous path of journalist and author Curtis Wilkie
58 Celebration at the Preserve Quail hunting in Tallahatchie County
68 Mississippi Music Mogul
DELTA URS DETO
How Tunica’s Bradford Cobb became a music-biz magnate
75 DM’s Annual Tourism Section
Icons and Memories at the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi, page 76 Do The Delta Like A Local, page 80 Delta Detours and Tourism advertising section, page 92
125 2025 Health, Beauty, and Wellness SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION Start the new year off right with these health care providers ON THE COVER: Mary Francis Mangum with Irish Setter, Chile, on a quail hunt at Trout Valley Quail in Tallahatchie County. Photo by Rory Doyle. 10 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
in every issue 12 Letters 20 On the Road Where we’ve been, where we’re going next
24 Off the Beaten Path Roaming the real and rustic Delta
28 Hot Topics 142 Events 146 Delta Seen 152 The Final Word by Stephanie Patton
Your next great waterfowling adventure is just a step away. Get outside and go hunting—nature’s greatest sunrises are in the MISSISSIPPI DELTA ducks.org
LETTERS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024
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RECIPES TO MAKE THIS SEASON
A festive holiday breakfast Host a small(er) Thanksgiving The ultimate
EDIBLE GIFTS
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Wright Thompson’s The Barn
Oh my! The memories!! I couldn’t believe my eyes when my mom told me to look back at page 21 of your January/ February 2024 issue and see if saw anything that I recognized—and I certainly did—my slightly aged candy apple red car that my dad had restored for me in high school. It had belonged to my aunt many years before. Much fun was had in the Delta in that car and even at times on the campus of Ole Miss, I might add. I was so happy to see her again after all of these years and my daddy would be so proud that she has graced your pages. Thank you! Scarlett Robinson Indianola, Mississippi MUSIC
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HEN THE DOCTORS BEGAN TO EXPLAIN TO SINGER-SONGWRITER RON ETHERIDGE HOW HE WOULD NEVER PLAY GUITAR OR PIANO AGAIN, HE STOPPED LISTENING.
Dispatches From the Edge Greenville native Ron Etheridge wasn’t “a friend of the devil, but a friend of a friend,” as he sings on his new album, Good Family. Here’s how he found his way back. BY JIM BEAUGEZ • PHOTOS COURTESY OF RON ETHERIDGE
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The previous few days had been a confusing haze of faces, both familiar and foreign, alongside the bleeps of monitoring equipment and a tangle of plastic tubes attached to machines keeping him alive. The last thing Etheridge could remember was the morning of November 20, 2019, when he went out to buy cigarettes and guitar strings for a gig he had that night. Around 9 a.m., after a late-night songwriting session bled into daylight, his Nissan Xterra collided with a tractor-trailer. The accident left him paralyzed from the chest down, with a traumatic brain injury, broken vertebrae, a broken wrist, and a long list of cuts and contusions. He was lucky to be alive. But his troubles were far from over. Rock bottom was a place Etheridge had grown to know well over years of dalliances with substance abuse and troubles that had once landed him in the Rankin County lockup. Now, unable to do what he loved most—play music, never mind walking—he entered a deep depression that crushed him in ways the accident itself couldn’t. In the end, it almost finished the job. Etheridge had loved making music since his youth in Greenville, where he sang at Emmanuel Baptist Church. He started playing guitar at age 12 after his father died, and by sixteen, he was playing open mic nights at the downtown bar One Block East. “One minute you’re playing a twelve-bar blues with the house band, and the next you look over, and you’re playing with Lil’ Bill Wallace, Willie Foster, T-Model Ford—some of the greatest names in what was left of the Delta bluesmen,” he says about those days in the mid-1990s. “You never knew what you were gonna get to see on any given night.” Stints living in cities like Laurel—where he backed a pre-fame Afroman, the rapper who scored a novelty hit in 2000 with “Because I Got High”—and Nashville followed but didn’t last long compared to the decade he spent in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he made a living as a gigging musician. After he returned to Mississippi, the seasoned songwriter and performer cut the alt-country album There Will Be Wolves for Malaco’s Old Trace Records imprint, which earned him the title Mississippi Songwriter of the Year in 2017. His hot streak continued until that November morning after he made a voice memo recording of the tune he was writing and then hopped in the driver’s seat. For much of the year following the accident, he stayed in bed, unsure of what else to do. Slowly, though, as he began to question why he was still alive, he could only reach one conclusion: His survival meant that God wanted him here. “I had this realization that I didn’t have before, and I knew it so deeply that it was a message from God,” he says. “The only thing that made sense to me—that pulled me out of that depression—was that God is real, and God knew that it was important to take my hands so that I had to relearn to appreciate music and the gifts that he’s given me.”
Malaco is releasing Good Family on its Old Trace Records imprint. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024 | 79
I was so glad to see and read Jim Beaugez’s article about Ron Etheridge in the November/December issue! It makes me happy to know he is doing so well. He and Aubrey Holman entertained at Shapley’s in the Delta for many fun occasions. I know I drove them crazy with my requests, especially Ron’s “Nightlife” and Aubrey’s version of David Gray’s “Babylon.” Thank you for your feature. Great magazine! Melanie Shapley Flowers Ridgeland, Mississippi
I want to thank Cindy and everyone at Delta Magazine for graciously spotlighting my shop, Hunt & Bloom, in last year’s November/December issue. It was so meaningful being back on the pages of one of my favorite magazines after twenty years! Although I no longer physically live in the Delta, I’ll always be there in spirit. I look forward to every issue of Delta Magazine because it helps to keep me connected to my home, no matter how far away I am! Will Hunt Lewis Houston, Texas
The Hope Cup Annual clay shoot benefiting the Magnolia Speech School BY SUSAN MARQUEZ • PHOTOS BY TOM BECK AND DREW DEMPSEY
Teams of participants enjoying the day at the 2023 Hope Cup event, shooting the clay course, while also raising funds for the Magnolia Speech School.
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What a joy it was to open the September/October 2024 issue and see The Hope Cup prominently featured! Magnolia Speech School’s 12th annual clay shoot was a huge success, and we couldn’t have done it without your support. In fact, the Delta Magazine team won second place in the Pro Division—congratulations! We are so thankful for helping us tell our story and for your sponsorship of our event. We look forward to having you join us again next year. Katy Agnew Madison, Mississippi
I’m writing to say that I think Delta Magazine is the perfect Christmas gift! I love sharing your great magazine and can’t tell you how many texts I get throughout the year from those I send subscriptions to thanking me for their latest issue of Delta. Thanks for making this so easy! Merry Christmas! Greg Smith Senatobia, Mississippi
SEND COMMENTS AND LETTERS TO: editor@deltamagazine.com or Delta Magazine, PO Box 117, Cleveland, MS 38732 12 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Y’all Said
SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTS @deltamagazine
We Asked... Do you store your butter in the fridge? Or leave it out on the counter and why? Help us settle the debate! I store it in the fridge, but am on the hunt for a vintage butter bell to use and keep it at room temp! I may have to settle for a new one, but vintage would add a neat conversation piece! – Suzanne Barnette I refrigerate my butter! – Kitty Kossmam Oh, how I love to cook with real butter. I prefer unsalted butter (I’ll add any necessary salt) and I store it in the refrigerator for long-term storage. If I plan to use the stick of butter in a day or two, I often store it in a container on the countertop. There’s nothing like soft butter on a hot roll or hot cornbread! – Billy Morehead I keep a stick in a butter dish on the counter so it’s nice and soft when I use it, but store extra in the fridge until it’s needed to keep it fresh. – Tamara Blackwell
READER RESPONSE deltamagazine.com
November-December Issue 2024 Scaling Down, Celebrating Big for a Small(er) Thanksgiving by Cindy Coopwood and Cordelia Capps ~ All the recipes are looking awesome and I’m ready to try them. Thanks. – R. Lynch Dispatches from the Edge by Jim Beaguez ~ Ron Etheridge is a dear old friend of mine and I knew even when I saw him in that hospital right after the accident that he would continue to write. I’m so proud of him and I can’t wait to give this album a full listen with headphones by myself with no distractions. God bless you, Ron. – Aubrey Holman What a great inspirational testimony. Congratulations Ron Etheridge on this honor. – June Patterson
Autumn Appetizers
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September-October Issue 2024 Autumn Appetizers by Cindy Coopwood ~ Different appetizers! Thank you for offering different and delicious-sounding alternatives! I can’t wait to try them! – Monica Scotto Thank you for sharing these. An appetizer is sometimes a meal for me at night!! These seem fulfilling!! – Mary Jane Ervin DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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New Year...New Way to
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Gathering Place
PHOTO BY SCOTT COOPWOOD
There is nothing like the magnetic draw of the flickering light and warmth of a campfire in winter—a familiar sight at hunting clubs across the Delta. The crackling of the fire, the smell of wood smoke, and the cool night air seem to strip away the distractions of daily life. So whether children are making s’mores, hunters are telling tall tales, or families and friends simply gather to share memories and stories of the day, campfires are often the place where friendships are forged and memories are made. This campfire is located in Western Bolivar County on Old River, an oxbow lake that was once part of the Mississippi River. DM
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Spring 2025 Season
Feb.
4
Feb. DRUMLINE LIVE
20
DIRTY DANCING IN CONCERT
Mar.
6
GRAND FUNK RAILROAD
BUY TICKETS
NOW! www.bolognapac.com 662.846.4626
Mar. AN EVENING
JEFF 20 WITH FOXWORTHY
Apr.
10 ZZ TOP
ON THE ROAD
where we’ve been, where to go next
TALLAHATCHIE COUNTY
Mirror image: The stunning reflection of what was once a favorite family “fishing hole” but is now a “duck hole” located near Brazil, Mississippi. – FRANK MELTON.
YAZOO COUNTY
SUNFLOWER COUNTY
Road well traveled: The hilly path of Highway 49 from Jackson to Yazoo City, 1964. – I LOVE MISSISSIPPI
PHOTO OPS OKTIBBEHA COUNTY
Trifecta at sunset: The Bolivar-Washington-Sunflower County crossroads. – ANNA REGINELLI
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Johnny Cash mural in Starkville commemorates the night he spent in jail for picking flowers. – @ONLYINMISSISSIPPI
COAHOMA COUNTY WARREN COUNTY
Ancient cypress swamp at Old River near Stovall. – LIBBY RAE WATSON
BOLIVAR COUNTY
Did you know Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1894 in Vicksburg at what is now the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum? Stop and step back in time at this historical treasure! – VISIT VICKSBURG
& FUNKY STOPS
In 1974, early in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s career, brothers and music promoters Carl and Paul Abraham of Cleveland brought the band to town for a show at the Expo Center. – PAUL ABRAHAM
TUNICA COUNTY
The hit song “Walking in Memphis” may have made it famous, but The Hollywood Cafe in Tunica is a great place to belly up to the bar— be sure to order the fried pickles and a burger. – JOHN ARMSTRONG Instagram users, follow @deltamagazine
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OFF THE BEATEN PATH roaming the real and rustic Delta
BRUSSEL’S BONSAI NURSERY From a Budding Hobby to a Blooming Business
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F YOU WERE INTRIGUED BY BONSAI—MR. MIYAGI’S CAREFUL CULTIVATION OF MINIATURE TREES AND LIVING WORKS OF ART IN THE KARATE KID IN THE ‘80S, YOU CAN GET YOUR OWN AT BRUSSEL’S BONSAI NURSERY IN OLIVE BRANCH. One of the nation’s largest bonsai nurseries, “It started as a hobby that just kept growing,” says nursery owner Brussel. After experimenting with bonsai throughout high school, he rented a small nursery and began growing entry-level bonsai to sell through magazine ads. Now, Brussel’s Bonsai is the largest bonsai nursery in the country. They grow an impressive variety, from twenty-five-dollar starters to $25,000 rare specimens and everything in between. They stock many easy-to-grow varieties, like green mound junipers and Ficus trees, for beginners. “We have our own website, but the majority of our sales come from our drop-ship customers. They sell our product on their site and send us the order. We pack and ship with their label to their customer,” says Brussel. Some of Brussel’s biggest partners include Amazon, 1-800-Flowers, Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s. “We have the capability to ship out 6,000 orders a day. No other bonsai nursery can do that. All the orders that come in are shipped on the same day. Over Mother’s Day week, we will ship 40,000 orders.” Brussel credits the nursery’s central location and the longer growing season in Mississippi for their ability to fulfill orders so quickly. “Being in the central part of the USA and the home base of FedEx has worked well for the speed and distance of shipping,” he says. Quality control is of the utmost importance. Brussel explained, “We have a special bonsai soil we grow all our plants in. It helps maintain the health of a bonsai long after it leaves here.” For Brussel, being in the bonsai business is more than a job—it’s a lifelong passion. “It’s great to be in a business that you like. It makes coming to work enjoyable.” From those early days growing them as a hobby, he’s built Brussel’s Bonsai into a national leader, bringing the art of miniature trees to homes and gardens across America. 8125 Center Hill Road, Olive Branch 800.582.2593; brusselsbonsai.com Facebook: Brussel’s Bonsai; Instagram: @brusselsbonsai 24 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Brussel’s Bonsai Nursery in Olive Branch is the largest bonsai nursery in the nation shipping orders to retailers across the country.
THE VINTAGE MARKET, NEW ALBANY Reimagined Restaurant with a Vintage Vibe
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HE VINTAGE MARKET IS A RETRO DINER THAT TRANSPORTS CUSTOMERS BACK TO SIMPLER TIMES, OFFERING A BLEND OF VINTAGE SOUTHERN SANDWICHES, DELI-STYLE OFFERINGS, AND DELECTABLE DESSERTS.
Casual dining with delicious sandwiches, fountain drinks, and more, served in a cozy retro atmosphere that keeps patrons coming back.
Originally, the market was an antique store serving ice cream, shakes, fountain drinks, and a few sandwiches. When the owner wanted to retire, Angela Kirk saw an opportunity to revive one of her favorite local spots. She bought the restaurant on October 1 and reopened it on November 6. It features a cozy sitting area with a vintage Atari console and bookcases filled with yearbooks from local schools. Each Thursday, they post a “Throwback Thursday” yearbook photo, and the first person to identify it wins a free lunch. “We have an old-time soda fountain where we pump syrups into frosted mugs and fill them with carbonation,” Angela said. “Entrees are served on vintage dishes that don’t match, and beverages (other than fountain drinks) are served in quart mason jars. Our Monster shakes are served in pint mason jars.” Some of the most popular menu items include the Main Street sandwich, featuring turkey, Colby, and three-cheese pepperjack with Dijon mayo on grilled sourdough, and the Apple Street, a jalapeno-popper grilled cheese with bacon, cream cheese, cheddar, and mozzarella on Texas toast, served with a side of blackberry preserves. Angela added, “We also serve our sought-after chicken salad, tuna salad, and pimento cheese. Our specialty salads are prepared in reverse order in a quart mason jar and served upside down on a plate.” Looking ahead, Angela hopes to expand the menu with more daily specials and offer evening hours for dinner. “My favorite thing is serving people and seeing them enjoy what’s been prepared,” Angela said. “So far, I’ve been making all the sandwiches myself and haven’t gotten to visit with customers very much. But when I hear all the chatter and laughter, it tells me they’re enjoying their time spent here and hopefully savoring the meal I prepared for them.” The Vintage Market is more than a restaurant—it’s a nostalgic journey bringing the community together over delicious food and shared memories. 127 West Bankhead Street, New Albany; 662.598.2055 Facebook: The Vintage Market
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HOT TOPICS CATHEAD DISTILLERY’S NEW HOODOO ESPRESSO A ready-to-serve espresso martini Get ready to shake up your evenings with Hoodoo Espresso, the latest creation from Cathead Distillery, Mississippi’s oldest legal distillery. A pre-batched, ready-to-serve espresso martini, Hoodoo Espresso is made with just three simple ingredients—Cathead Vodka, direct trade coffee sourced from Louisiana- and Mississippibased Northshore Specialty Coffee, and Demerara sugar—making it as easy to enjoy as it is to prepare. “Few cocktails match the popularity of the espresso martini,” said Richard Patrick, co-founder of Cathead Distillery. “It’s a modern classic that’s universally loved, but not necessarily easy to make. Hoodoo Espresso provides a more approachable option for both professional and home bartenders.” One bottle equals eight perfectly crafted espresso martinis—just shake and serve! No fuss, no extra ingredients. With a bold, classic flavor profile, Hoodoo Espresso offers a long finish of fruity, dark chocolate notes, and a touch of caramel sweetness. But here’s the kicker: unlike other espresso liqueurs or vodkas, Hoodoo Espresso gives you a little buzz with 50mg of caffeine per 1.5 oz. So, not only does it taste amazing, it wakes up your night, too. “I am blown away with the depth of flavor and
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unparalleled quality of Hoodoo Espresso,” said chef and cookbook author John Currence. “Cathead Distillery’s team and products are something EVERY Mississippian should recognize for their dedication to excellence.” So, whether you’re craving a classic espresso martini or exploring new coffee-based concoctions like an espresso high ball or carajillo, Hoodoo Espresso is your new go-to for athome bar magic. Hoodoo Espresso is now available in retailers across the Delta. Price: $34.99. 422 South Farish Street, Jackson; 601.667.3038 catheaddistillery.com; Facebook: CatheadDistillery; Instagram: @drinkcathead
IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS Gift shop brings unique products to Greenwood If you’re looking for a gift shop with character, a place with something for everyone, and a place you can visit and feel at home, Details in Greenwood is the place for you. Details is more than a high-end gift shop—it’s a reflection of owner Holly Miller’s heart, dreams and faith. Less than a year into the business, the shop sits in a renovated 1905 building, steps from The Alluvian Hotel and Viking Cooking School. Holly and her husband, Eric, have poured their passion into creating a unique shopping experience. “I’ve worked in gift shops since I was fifteen, and opening my own was always a dream,” she shared. But it wasn’t just about fulfilling a personal goal. Holly wanted to craft a store where “everything feels special,” offering a curated selection that includes Simon Pearce glassware from Vermont, luxurious linens, men’s leather goods from Louisville, Kentucky, and one-of-a-kind home decor. What truly sets Details apart, however, is the experience. “I want everybody to feel special when they walk in,” Holly said. Her commitment to exceptional service includes beautifully wrapping
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purchases with signature big bows and even carrying packages to customers’ cars. The store, which often features Holly’s daughters helping out, feels more like a home than a retail space. Family photos fill the frames for sale, and Holly delights in sharing the stories behind them. During a challenging time when her youngest daughter was undergoing cancer treatment, a friend reminded Holly that “God answers detailed prayers.” Naming the store Details is a personal and spiritual reminder that God cares about every aspect of life. To give back, Details supports St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through candle sales, donating ten dollars for every candle sold. With its warm atmosphere, unique products, and personal touches, Details is more than a shop—it’s a place where customers feel like family, and every purchase tells a story. For Holly, it’s realizing a lifelong dream infused with purpose, community, and heart. 219 Howard Street, Greenwood; 662.219.0328 Facebook: Details - Greenwood; Instagram: shop_details_gwood
THE WALK-IN New restaurant, new vibe in historic Jackson hot spot One of the newest additions to the growing Jackson food scene is right downtown and shares space with iconic Hal & Mal’s. New restaurateurs Damien Cavicchi and Mary Sanders Ferriss Cavicchi recently opened The Walk-In, aptly named as it’s located in what was once the Hal & Mal’s walk-in cooler. The Walk-In is a fresh, fun, and distinctive spot that offers shareable light plates and specialty cocktails from happy hour to late night. The Walk-In will be open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Monday from 4 p.m. to midnight, giving the Jackson community a sophisticated yet unpretentious place to gather, socialize, and enjoy great food and drinks. The menu features innovative appetizers and small plates by Chef Damien Cavvichi designed for sharing, alongside an array of craft cocktails and non-alcoholic cocktails, beer, and wine. While The Walk-In may share a building with the historic Hal
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& Mal’s, this new restaurant will prove to be a completely original experience for patrons, with a fresh menu and drink offerings that can’t be found elsewhere. Unique ideas and new offerings on the menu, such as tamale cornbread dressing egg rolls with mulled cranberry gastrique, offered the day after Thanksgiving— as well as Karaoke—have kept patrons coming back. “We are absolutely thrilled to be adding something new and exciting to Jackson’s vibrant downtown scene,” said co-owner Mary Sanders Ferriss Cavicchi. “The WalkIn is all about providing a welcoming space where everyone can relax and enjoy their evening. We’re looking forward to giving the community a fresh option for late-night dining and drinks.” The Walk-In aims to create a laid-back, authentic atmosphere where patrons can feel at home. The space will be quirky and fun, with vintage records and local art setting the tone for a memorable experience and an escape from everyday life. 200 Commerce Street, Jackson; 601.439.0105 thewalkinjxn.com; Instagram: @thewalkinjxn
JXN FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL The city with soul rolls out red carpet for top chefs Jackson may be known as the City with Soul, but it could also be called the City that Eats, as it is also quickly becoming a foodie destination. And with a deep roster of Mississippi and Southern Chefs Rounding out the event, the second annual JXN Food & Wine Festival, the premier culinary festival celebrating the vibrant food scene in Mississippi’s capital city, is excited to announce the talent lineup for the 2025 event. Expanding to two days in its second year, JXNFW 2025 will take place March 14–15, and will feature a larger lineup of renowned chefs this year, including Jackson’s own celebrity Chef, Nick Wallace, and Bravo’s Top Chefs, Jackson Kalb, Gabriel Pascuzzi and Michelle Wallace. The festival weekend will offer a variety of engaging culinary experiences, including a series of intimate dinners with Chef Nick Wallace and three guest chefs on Friday evening, with the main festival’s tastings, cooking demonstrations and live music on Saturday. “We are incredibly excited to announce the lineup for the 2025
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JXN Food & Wine Festival,” said Nick Wallace, chef chair of the festival. “This year promises to be even more exceptional, with a fantastic selection of chefs and a diverse range of culinary experiences. We can’t wait to welcome food lovers from near and far to celebrate the vibrant food scene of Jackson and Mississippi.” These chefs from the capital city and beyond will offer a diverse assortment of styles and highlight the rich culinary heritage of the region: Hunter Evans, Elvie’s, Mayflower; Chaz Lindsay, Pulito Osteria; Eddie Wright, Eddie Wright BBQ; Grant Hutcheson, Pig & Pint; Geno Lee, Big Apple Inn; Damien Cavicchi, Hal & Mal’s; Brian Myrick, Johnny T’s; Joseph Sambou, Sambou’s African Kitchen; La Brioche + Spark Confectionary; Alex Eaton, Aplos;Ty Thames, Starkville, MS; Marc Bynum, Birmingham, AL Food enthusiasts are encouraged to visit the website and follow on Instagram to purchase tickets and to keep abreast of updates and additional chefs added to the lineup. jxnfoodandwine.com; Instagram: @jxnfoodandwine
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BOOKS
Buzzworthy Comments
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Illustrated by John Burgoyne (Simon & Schuster) Oh, what a lovely book is The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a short read the world desperately needs right now. In a society based on fear, scarcity, and competition, this prolonged, beautiful essay is a presentation of the promises and kindnesses of the natural world. Offering the example of the serviceberry tree and its relationship with birds, Kimmerer demonstrates the beauty and freedom of a gift economy, where the focus is relationship as opposed to a materialistic need for more without considering how much is being taken. This book is a soft reminder that we must have a give and take relationship with our world and to consume responsibly and with restraint, and only as much as we can give back. (Liza Jones)
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Eleanore of Avignon by Elizabeth DeLozier (Penguin Random House) Elizabeth DeLozier’s debut, Eleanore of Avignon is a dazzling historical fiction novel. It will surprise any reader that this is her first. Eleanore “Elea” Blanchet, like her mother before her, is an excellent midwife and herbalist in Avignon in 1347. She happens to meet a man named Guigo who is the personal physician to the powerful Pope Clement. The doctor takes her on as an apprentice which catapults her into a prestigious and wealthy world just as the Black Death arrives in Europe, putting her and Guigo at the crux of everything. But when people start needing someone to blame, as the religious hysteria over witchcraft continues amidst the death and sickness, Elea has much to lose as an unwedded, intelligent woman who can heal. DeLozier has made such a rich medieval world, along with a story that Elizabeth DeLozier never lets up. It is endlessly fascinating. (Liza Jones)
We asked Facebook friends and the Delta Magazine fan page group members to share the best book they read last year. o John Cox, attorney Cleveland, Mississippi
The Barn by Wright Thompson o Cindy Turner Roberts, retired Santa Rosa, Florida
The Last Letter by Rebecca Yarros o Jo Donna Watson, retired Cleveland, Mississippi
From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough o Marilyn Lipnick Alford, Gilbows Ladies Store Gunnison, Mississippi
The Women by Kristen Hannah o Connie Elliot Butts, retired
A Very Bad Thing by J.T. Ellison (Thomas & Mercer) In the mood for a psychological thriller? J.T. Ellison’s A Very Bad Thing will satisfy this craving, as it is a twisty whodunnit that will leave the reader questioning every character. Columbia Jones is a beloved bestselling author. At a book tour event, she is confronted by a mysterious man and faints. Later that night, after recovering from her spell, a journalist she hired to write a special piece about her finds her dead in her hotel room. There are flashbacks to other times and places as Columbia’s daughter, the journalist, and a detective try to uncover who did it. Even more is revealed with chapters from her own memoir—a book within a book. Filled with carefully laid clues and bright red herrings, this novel is a fun puzzle to let lost in. (Liza Jones)
Carmel, Indiana
An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin o Jessica Massey Carr, attorney Cleveland, Mississippi
Banyan Moon by Thao Thai o Tara Clark Laney, travel nurse recruiter Tupelo, Mississippi
The Seven Sisters Series by Lucinda Riley J. T. Ellison
o Kristi Brown Burns, nurse Oxford, Mississippi
The Women by Kristen Hannah
For the Record Books Delta Magazine fans are currently reading o Leslie Smith Shellman The Attic Child by Lola Jaye
o Renee Homeyer Butts Woman’s Murder Club by James Patterson
o Terry Holmes Reasons The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand
o Susan Huff All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin 32 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
o Sarah Wells Smigiel Agatha Raisin by M.C. Beaton
o Judy Tranum The Women by Kristen Hannah
o Leigh Bradley The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
o Kim Wilson Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand
o Jamie Brown The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille
o Lisa Miller Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
o Dalma Moore By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult
God’s Fingerprints: A Wanderer’s Journey by Tony Kinton (Trilogy Christian Publishers)
Author, hunter, and lover of nature, Tony Kinton, shares in his new book, God’s Fingerprints: A Wanderer’s Journey, a collection of more than 30 stories and anecdotes, spread over a span of forty years, from his first squirrel hunts in his Mississippi childhood to memorable hunts and travels through nineteen states and through all of Canada and five provinces of South Africa. And from his earliest experiences, he saw what he calls God’s fingerprints. This is Kinton’s ninth book, and is poignantly dedicated to his late wife, Susan, who shared many adventures with him, and patiently tolerated his enthusiasm for hunting. The stories are not in chronological order, with each tale an entity unto itself regardless of when or where it occurred. Kinton shares in his introduction that the book grew from a lifetime of seeing God’s fingerprints in all he experienced, and he invites the reader to join him as he revisits these wanderings, hoping we emerge with more maturity, acceptance, and contentment as a result, and that through them we would also see God’s fingerprints, for he says, “They are everywhere.” (DM Staff )
The Queen of Memphis by Martin Hegwood (Spanish Moss Publications, LLC) LuAnn Collier, a small-town beauty queen from the Delta, has eloped with Burniss Winnforth, the most sought-after bachelor in Memphis, and her new mother-in-law Maggie is furious. The Winnforths are the leaders of Memphis society, and the Colliers are what Maggie considers “common,” a bunch of low-class gamblers or worse, so she’s not about to sit back and let this flashy gold-digger into the family, not without a fight. And Maggie’s campaign of gossip and ostracism to run LuAnn off is particularly vicious because she’s driven by a force more powerful than mere snobbery. Maggie’s scared to death that LuAnn will uncover a long-buried Winnforth family secret, one so shocking that it could knock the family from the pinnacle of Memphis society. But running LuAnn off is a lot harder than Maggie ever imagined. LuAnn Collier is every bit as strong-willed as Maggie, every bit as tough, and with the battle lines drawn, she’s every bit as determined to claw her way to the top of the Memphis social ladder as Maggie is to keep her from doing so. (DM Staff ) Our Southern Souls by Lynn Oldshue (Self published) Renowned journalist and photographer Lynn Oldshue released the much-anticipated Our Southern Souls, Vol. II on October 20. Three years after the success of the first Souls book, which sold out in 2021, Oldshue once again invites readers into the lives of everyday people she meets through chance encounters on the street. This captivating collection of 160 stories, originally published on the website of the same name, highlights tragedy and triumph and everything in between. Among the collection’s standout narratives are a man who could balance his entire body weight on one finger, a trusted advisor for an American President, and a young farm boy who left the fields at 18 for World War II combat. Other compelling stories include a football player whose NFL hopes were shattered by an injury that cost him part of his leg, a woman who swam across Mobile Bay as part of her rigorous training to conquer the English Channel, and powerful accounts of addiction, recovery, the birth and death of dreams, and losing—and finding—everything. (DM Staff) DM DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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DELTA MAGAZINE ANNOUNCEMENT OPTIONS
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ONE-PAGE ANNOUNCEMENTS
SALEM
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TWO-PAGE ANNOUNCEMENTS
GOODMAN
DAVIS
Abbey McCulloch Goodman and William Brandon Hanks were
reception at the Historic Elks Lodge in Greenwood. Karyn Burrus,
united in marriage at half past six o’clock in the evening on
cousin of the bride, with Grapevine Catering provided the food.
February 11, 2023, at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity in
Live music and entertainment were provided by Paul Brown
Greenwood.
downstairs during cocktail hour, and then upstairs by Dr. Zarr’s
The bride is the daughter of Tish Bowie Goodman of
Amazing Funk Monster. Grapevine Catering also created the
Greenwood and the late Paul Lumpkin Goodman. She is the
wedding cake and chocolate groom’s cake, which included a cake
granddaughter of Curtis Doty Bowie of Greenwood and the late
topper signifying his love for flying and their dog, Quiver.
Rose Marie Bowie, and the late Reverend and Mrs. Herbert Raymond Goodman of Tupelo.
an engagement party held by Clarksdale friends at the beautiful home of Tony Clay and Kalynn Marley. The bachelorette party was
Floyd Hanks of Memphis.
a wonderful winter trip to New York City; the groomsmen enjoyed
The ceremony of Holy Matrimony with Eucharist was officiated
united in marriage at seven o’clock in the evening on Saturday, May
Tennessee. Dr. Kenneth Bruce Davis, junior, served as best man in
20, 2023, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter the Apostle in downtown
spirit. Groomsmen were James Bellipanni, Will Edgecombe, Will
Jackson.
Brown, George Inmon, Andrew Ables, Jake Griffin, Nelson Duke,
The bride is the daughter of Nameh and Dawin Salem of Jackson. She is the granddaughter of Sharon Abide and the late Mr. George Victor Abide of Rogers, Arkansas, and the late Dr. and
William Vaughn and Will Jarrett.
On the Friday before the wedding, the bride was honored by her mother’s friends with a bridesmaid’s brunch at the home of Stick and Shawna Young. The groom was honored with a “BBQ
friend of the bride’s family. Scripture readers were Mari Brian Crick
& Skeet Shoot” lunch at Tallahatchie Flats by the bride’s uncle,
and Anne Craig Melton of Greenwood.
Mark Bowie.
Escorted by her grandfather, Abbey wore a Stella York classic
On the eve of the wedding, the groom’s grandparents and
gown with a sweetheart neckline and open back featuring a lace
bride’s mother hosted a rehearsal dinner at the Museum of the
and beaded bodice with a ballerina-inspired tulle skirt. The gown
Mississippi Delta also catered by Karyn Burrus of Grapevine
and matching veil were chosen at Amelia Grace Bridal of
Catering. Following the rehearsal dinner, a post toast after-party
Greenwood.
was held in the lobby of The Alluvian, where Stephen Pillow The coordinator for the wedding weekend was Pryor
Shelby Malouf Barret, Neely Young Ellis, Merritt Belk Harris, Kaitlin
Hackleman of A Pryor Engagement. Flowers were created by Kim
Bunch, Jane Mortimer Nicholson, Elizabeth Costa Farris,
Kellum, cousin of the bride, of Grapevine Florals. Matthew Moore
The groom is the son of Mary Anna Davis and the late Dr.
and Nell Salem and Sharron Ritarose Abide served as the flower
McKenzie Amis, and Laine Wilson Vandevender. The proxy bride
of Third Bird Films was the wedding videographer and Patrick
Kenneth Bruce Davis, junior, of Cleveland, Mississippi. He is the
girls. Father Joe Tonos, of Saint Richard Catholic Church in Jackson,
was Mary Shelton Bond. The bridesmaids wore floor-length
Remington served as photographer for the weekend. Décor was
grandson of the late Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Bruce Davis of
officiated the wedding Mass.
dresses of various styles, each in a different shade of blush,
provided by Details of Oxford. Angie Cole was the live painting
champagne, and pewter, and all individually chosen.
artist at the reception.
Texarkana, Arkansas, and the late Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus Jones Davis, junior, of Marion, Alabama. Attending the bride as matron of honor was her sister, Marjorie Salem Houff of Spring Hill, Tennessee, with Catherine Blake Jernigan of Nashville, Tennessee, serving as maid of honor. Bridesmaids were
Following the ceremony, the reception was held at The Capital
Lyle Dilworth served as his grandson’s best man. Groomsmen
Following the wedding, the couple enjoyed a week’s stay on
eve of the wedding at Char Restaurant in Jackson. After a two-week
included Tony Clay Marley, Caleb Dodson, Gage Long, T.J.
the island of St. Lucia. Mr. and Mrs. Hanks reside in Greenwood
honeymoon in London, England, and Sorrento, Italy, the couple is
Russell, Jon Walhood, Rod Freeman, Seth Vance, Trippe Pilgrim,
where Abbey is the marketing director of The Mississippi Gift
Barrett Johnson, Cody Britt, and Bo Armstrong.
Company and Brandon continues to farm in the Doddsville area.
Club in downtown Jackson. The rehearsal dinner was held on the
Kaela Smyth LeDoux, Natalie Smyth, Mary Catherine Morrison,
at home in Jackson’s Belhaven neighborhood. The bride works in
Malorie Luckett Salem, Rachel Wirtz Salem, Emma Crosby, Lexie
medical device sales with Intuitive Surgical, and the groom is an
Hill Grisanti, Catherine Wohner, Allie Jones, and Gabby Cannon
attorney with Copeland, Cook, Taylor & Bush, P.A.
Four horizontal photos Up to 900-950 word write-up
provided entertainment.
Goldberg Bryant attended as matron of honor. Bridesmaids were
Robert Salem and David Houff, junior, served as ring bearers,
Mrs. Yacoub Salem of Amioun, Lebanon.
photos
a fishing trip in Cabo San Lucas.
Caroline Colquett. Music was provided by organist David Williamson, along with vocalist Cissye Meeks Gallagher, a lifelong
Mary Holly Lott attended the bride as maid of honor, while Erin
Marshall Fratesi, Patrick Salem, and Jacob Salem. Ushers were
Two vertical
Greenwood friends at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta, and
Shelby and the late Carl Hayden Hanks. He is the grandson of Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Dilworth of Shelby, and the late Mr. and Mrs. William
by the Reverend Don Chancellor. The ceremony was directed by
Attending the groom as best man was Michael Oleis of Nashville,
FORMAL
The couple was honored with several parties prior to the wedding including a New Year’s Eve engagement party held by
The groom is the son of Ms. Belinda Dilworth Pinckard of
Anagrace Sharron Salem and Kenneth Bruce Davis III were
HANKS
Episcopal Church of the Nativity • Greenwood • Patrick Remington Photography
Cathedral of Saint Peter the Apostle • Jackson • Patrick Remington Photography
Following the ceremony, the bride’s mother hosted the
McDonald. 180 | MARCH/APRIL 2024
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Formal: One vertical photo Two horizontal photos Up to 450-500 word write-up
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
BROCK
BROOKS
First Presbyterian Church • Greenwood • Mackenzie Rue with Taylor Square Photography
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
KINNEY
MARTIN
VISUAL
Miramar Beach • Miramar Beach, Florida • Photography by Miranda Stallings
Three vertical photos Five horizontal photos Anne Darrington Brock
Katherine Ann Kinney Wedding Date Bride’s Parents Groom’s Parents Wedding Gown Wedding Planner Reception Venue Floral Design Catering Wedding Cake Entertainment Bride’s Hair and Makeup Invitations and Stationery Honeymoon Location
& John Madison Brooks IV
Wedding Date Bride’s Parents Groom’s Parents Wedding Gown Wedding Planner Reception Venue Floral Design Catering Wedding Cake Grooms Cake Entertainment Bride’s Hair and Makeup Bride’s Makeup Invitations and Stationery Honeymoon Location
& William Clayton Martin
Vendor details
December 16, 2023 Mr. and Mrs. Henry Donald Brock, junior Mr. and Mrs. John Madison Brooks III and Mr. and Mrs. John Miller Bush II Monique Lhuillier from Elle James Bridal Pryor Hackleman, A Pryor Engagement The Historic Elks Lodge A Pryor Engagement, Mississippi Flower Co. Sookie’s Catering Ellen Cookies Grapevine Cakes, Catering and Floral Compozitionz The Collective Salon Rivers Countiss Keyes Rebekah Caraway Design & Paper St. Lucia
168 | MARCH/APRIL 2024
September 29, 2023 Mr. Wesley Kinney and Mrs. Carol Kinney Mr. and Mrs. Russell Martin BHLDN RaeBird Weddings + Events Gray Whale, Miramar Beach Forget Me Knot Event Florals & Rentals Artistic Catering Sweetly Sisters B-Boy Productions Kendra K Beauty Minted Oyster Bay, Jamaica
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Visual: Two vertical photos
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
SHEPPARD
Two horizontal photos Vendor details
MILLER
The Peabody Memphis • Memphis, Tennessee • BN Creative Photography
VISUAL Announcement information can be found online at deltamagazine.com/weddings. Chosen form will provide prompts to upload announcement or details (Word, Pages, or PDF) and all photos. Please provide high-resolution images. Screenshots of write ups or photos will not be accepted. Each announcement will have the option to upload an additional 25 photos for the wedding showcase feature. Please read the instructions carefully!
Three vertical photos (Specify which photo to be full page)
Two horizontal photos Mimi Abbott Sheppard Wedding Date Bride’s Parents Groom’s Parents Wedding Gown Reception Venue Floral Design Catering Wedding Cake Bride’s Hair Bride’s Makeup Invitations and Stationery Honeymoon Location
& J Grady Pacifici Miller
Vendor details
June 10, 2023 Mr. and Mrs. William Merritt Sheppard Mrs. Theresa Pacifici Biro and Mr. Eric Dodd Miller Theia from Maggie Louise Bridal Charlie Vergos Rendezvous Michelle Sheppard and Cissye Gallagher Charlie Vergos Rendezvous PattiCakes Bakery Angela McCaleb from Salon Haven Elizabeth Gallagher Ménage Fine Stationery & Gifts Rosemary Beach, Florida
200 | MARCH/APRIL 2024
For questions or assistance contact 662.843.2700 or weddings@deltamagazine.com
ART
Writing on the Wall Storytelling through Gavin Bird’s Mississippi Murals BY COURTNEY INGLE PHOTOS COURTESY OF GAVIN BIRD 36 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
One of Bird’s most recent works for Main Street Greenville depicts many cultural elements of the historic town.
ou’ve heard the sayings, “If these walls could talk,” and “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Thanks to muralist Gavin Bird, walls across the Mississippi Delta and Central Mississippi are telling the stories of the unique culture of the Magnolia State, breathing life into historic places and otherwise bare walls.
Y
Bird was born into a family of creatives and explored art early on. But his journey from dabbling in sketches to turning municipal architecture into mural masterpieces wasn’t a straight path. Beginnings in Art It is fair to say that Bird’s passion for art runs in his veins. His father, Joseph Bird, taught art and worked as an art director and freelance animator. His mother, Susan Sharp, utilized her creative brilliance as an architect. His identical twin brother, Rowan, also a talented artist, has made a name for himself selling beautiful landscape paintings. Bird credits much of his artistic foundation to his father, but his inspirations extend beyond family. He admires the naturedriven works of Walter Anderson, the surrealism of Salvador Dalí, and the intricate compositions of Gustav Klimt. “I’ve always been drawn to art that feels alive, whether through color, detail, or emotion,” he says. Art was the heartbeat of the Bird family and the sport between the brothers. “It was almost like a sibling rivalry, but in the best way,” Bird says.
Though Bird’s talent is undeniable, he didn’t set out to become a muralist. He flirted with graphic design, became a tattoo artist apprentice, and worked with vehicle wraps at a sign company. He even sold art in small galleries, with his first work selling for just twenty-five dollars. But there had to be more for Bird—he just didn’t know how to find it. It wasn’t until Bird went skateboarding at a skate park in Jackson, Mississippi, that he “stumbled upon” his artistic dream. Borrowing spray paint from a graffiti artist, he crafted his first mural—a simple blue heron—on a dilapidated wall. It was quick, intuitive, and deeply fulfilling. “I realized I already had the foundation to create something great; I just needed to learn the tools,” Bird recalls. The Birth of a Portfolio Bird’s passion for murals ignited from that first spontaneous work at the skate park. The park became his canvas, and he began painting Mississippi-themed nature scenes funded by a grassroots GoFundMe campaign. The project revitalized the space and served as his launching pad. “That skate park became my portfolio,” Bird says. “It was where people could see my work and imagine what I could do for them.” One of Bird’s earliest commissions came from his brother-inlaw in Louisiana; word of mouth and social media helped his reputation grow. “My Instagram became my most valuable portfolio,” Bird shares. “It’s where people could engage with my art in real-time.”
Alligator from the “A Journey Through Jackson” mural. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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“A Journey Through Jackson” is a 478-foot-long by 10-foot-tall mural depicting scenes and local elements from the Jackson area.
Surrealism mural at The Walk-In located inside Hal & Mal’s.
North Carrollton landscape mural. 38 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Painting the Delta Eventually the Mississippi Delta became a canvas for some of Bird’s most memorable projects. He collaborated with Gri5th Media in Carrollton to create a mural funded by a community grant. The work highlighted local icons like Mississippi John Hurt and Greenwood LeFlore, blending history with artistic flair. “Smaller towns like Carrollton often don’t have hotels or major attractions to draw visitors,” Bird explains. “Murals can create landmarks that tell a town’s story, making people stop, take pictures, and engage with the community.” In Belzoni, a commission from Delta Wind Birds, an organization dedicated to promoting and protecting migratory bird habitat, allowed Bird to push creative boundaries. He immersed himself in the area, joining bird-tagging expeditions and touring local landmarks to understand the community better. The resulting mural is one of his favorites. “It wasn’t just about painting; it was about becoming part of the town,” he says. Another recent Delta commission, was made possible by Main Street Greenville. It highlights the town’s claim to fame as the Hot Tamale Capital of the World, and pays tribute to blues musician Jimmy Reed and other cultural elements of the Delta. Bird’s murals in Jackson and surrounding areas speak to his deep love for Mississippi’s unique cultural vista. In Fondren and
Crafting the Vision Bird’s process is far more than just showing up and painting. Every mural begins with digital sketches that give clients an idea of what the piece will look like once it is in place. “It’s a collaborative process with my clients,” he explains. “I don’t just show up and paint. Each piece is carefully planned and revised until it reflects my vision and the client’s goals.” This approach has not only earned Bird the trust of communities across Mississippi, but it has become vital to producing his best work. “The best projects happen when people trust you to step outside the box,” he says, pointing to works like the Belzoni mural. A Legacy in Progress For Bird, murals aren’t just art. They are vehicles for community expression over which locals and tourists alike can unite. Whether Bird’s murals include Mississippi wildlife, depictions of historical events, or bold artistic patterns—they capture the eye first, the heart, and then the mind of all who swing by to look at what’s been done. Looking ahead, Bird hopes to take his talents to the Gulf Coast, with towns like Ocean Springs and Biloxi on his radar. “There’s something magical about the coast,” he muses. “Creating something that reflects that energy and culture would be incredible.” As Bird continues transforming Mississippi’s walls into vibrant works of art, one thing is clear: his murals are more than paint on brick—they are stories brought to life, rooted in the heart of the communities they represent. DM
Bird working on a mural in North Carrollton. BRENT MCQUILLIN
Belhaven, Bird’s work brings life into the city, reflecting its melting pot of cultural expression. Bird has his sights set on bringing his murals to towns like Laurel, Oxford, and Meridian. Each potential project represents another wall to fill and a new story to tell. “Mississippi has so much untapped beauty, and murals can be a way to highlight that,” he notes.
TOMMY KIRKPATRICK
Belzoni firehouse mural commissioned by Delta Wind Birds.
Masked up for protection, Bird works on a live mural at Midtown Depot in Jackson. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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40 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Turn excess energy into monthly bill credits At Entergy Mississippi, we’re committed to a cleaner and more reliable energy future, and we’re proud to offer Net Metering to registered solar users who feel the same. Net Metering allows our customers to receive monthly bill credits for excess solar energy sent back to the grid. Simply download the application to see if you qualify – it’s that easy. Learn more at entergy.com/brightfuturems A message from Entergy Mississippi, LLC ©2025 Entergy Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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MUSIC
GOOD TIMES
Charlie Mac at work in the studio with Tom T. Hall.
Celebrating life, love, music, and sports with
CHARLIE MCALEXANDER
With the Vanderbilt radio crew: Roger May, Jim Curry, Charlie Mac, and Paul Kennedy.
BY JIM “FISH” MICHIE PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHARLIE MCALEXANDER
42 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Left to right: Archie Manning, Louisiana State University football coach Charlie McClendon, Memphis State football coach Spook Murphy, Ole Miss football coach Johnny Vaught, Dr. Faser Triplett, Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, former Ole Miss athletic director and captain of national champion football team Warner Alford, with Charlie McAlexander.
e’re gonna celebrate something tonight. Something! Anything!” the band leader onstage shouts enthusiastically to the boisterous crowd. He spins around to his band of Nashville studio and road musicians and shouts the count-off to the band. The celebrant is Charlie McAlexander, better known to his friends as Charlie Mac or CMac (See-Mac). It has been a long journey to this point in his career. He has been a coach, a teacher, and an award-winning radio and TV sports broadcaster, and throughout the journey, he has had a love affair with rock and roll as a singer.
“W
Charlie Mac was born and raised in Holly Springs, Mississippi, a little over seventy-seven years ago. He grew up playing all sports and listening to the music played by radio DJs Hoss Allen and Wolfman Jack. He absorbed the swamp-music of Muscle Shoals and the horn section-driven hot sounds of Memphis Soul music. These influences are evident as Charlie Mac performs with his current band, CMac and The Rhythm Machine. But Charlie Mac’s career in broadcasting was preceded by another success—making the freshman baseball team at Ole Miss as a walkon. Along with securing a spot on the Rebel roster, he sang with a rock and roll group in Oxford known as The Ole Miss Wanted. McAlexander recalls, “Rock and roll did not agree with my academic choices, and I was unable to continue playing at Ole Miss due to my grade point average suffering from a bad case of the blues.” During this time, The Ole Miss Wanted rehearsed in the back room of Kiamie’s original restaurant. Also in that group were Richie Burnette, a native of Clarksdale, and Gerald Chatham, now a federal judge in North Mississippi. Burnette still performs with his group, The Doo Vays. When asked about CMac’s prowess performing the college dance favorite, “the alligator” he confirmed, “Oh yeah, he could throw it down. CMac would try anything. His zest for life was as passionate as his love of wild clothes and rock and roll. “I remember we got one gig in 1966 in Panama City, Florida,
and we all thought that it would surely land us on The Ed Sullivan Show as our next stop. Not quite. We barely made it to the gig. My dad’s car broke down on the way to Florida!” laughs Burnette. “Charlie Mac and I rode together, and he had on a loud polka dot shirt and red octagonal sunglasses, and his hair was a bit longer than most folks of that time. We had to go to a truck stop to repair the car, and I was praying we would get out of that place unscathed after the good old boys saw Charlie Mac’s get up. Prayers were answered, and we made the gig. The Sullivan show decided not to call, but we kept on playing.” After a brief stint at Northwest Community College in Senatobia, McAlexander headed to Delta State College in Cleveland, where he tried out for the baseball team and where he was to meet one of the major influences of his life. Legendary Coach Boo Ferris was at the helm of the Delta State baseball program at that time, and Charlie Mac recalls, “I learned more about life and how to carry myself in life than I learned about baseball.” DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Charlie Mac’s wife, Betty (center), with daughters Emily and Carrie.
Charlie Mac interviewing Charlie Chase of Crook and Chase fame on Nashville channel 4.
Jim and Charlie Mac at Carol Ann’s Blues club in Nashville, Tennessee.
Charlie Mac with Grand Ole Opry member T.G. Brown and Brown’s wife, Sheila.
Charlie Mac with former voice of Mississippi State University Bulldogs Jack Cristal.
“Oh, he coached me with intensity, but as Coach Ferriss’s reputation attests, he taught more than baseball. He taught me HOW to live. In fact, he and one other Delta native are the two I most admire in all my years of sports and broadcasting.” McAlexander cites Archie Manning as the other significant influence. “Those two have the best template ever for living a good, solid, productive, and caring life. The fact that both of these guys were born and raised in the Mississippi Delta does not surprise me one bit. My years in the Delta were magical and abundant, with so many examples of giving and caring from the entire community. Archie and Coach Ferriss both exemplify the caring and love that I felt at Delta State and in Cleveland. It is such a special place, and 44 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
anywhere I go now, I brag on Cleveland and Delta State. The Delta is a unique area of Mississippi that remains in my heart and soul and will always be with me. “ Charlie Mac’s baseball career at Delta State was cut short once he joined the National Guard at the height of the Vietnam conflict, and it was after that he made the decision to go into sportscasting. Charlie Mac’s career in broadcasting is akin to following a path in a maze. He has been the sports director and the sports anchor for WABG-TV in Greenwood (where he says he learned a newfound respect for water moccasin snakes going to work daily in that little building in the middle of a cotton field.) He also worked at WLBTTV in Jackson, WREG-TV in Memphis, and finally at WSMV-TV in Nashville. During his broadcasting career, he was also the play-by-play voice of the Ole Miss Rebels, the Kentucky Wildcats, the South Carolina Gamecocks, and the Vanderbilt Commodores. He received Broadcaster of the Year award at each of these SEC schools, setting a record, as the only broadcaster to have ever received that award at four Southeastern Conference Schools. While in Nashville, he changed the name of his group to Charlie
Charlie Mac performing at Fox and Locke in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee.
Charlie Mac with Loretta Lynn.
Charlie Mac (kneeling) with NFL Hall of Fame member Ray Guy of the University of Southern Misssissipi and Bill Lee.
Charlie Mac won Broadcaster of the Year honors at four different SEC schools: Ole Miss, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. Mac and The Heart Attacks, as a who has known Charlie Mac for hat tip to his cardiologist and the over fifty years. McAlexander team that helped him get through recounts seeing a documentary a cardiac arrest. This team, along on the Manning family when with a changed diet and exercise, Archie tells the story of his father helped him return to the stage to driving him back to Ole Miss perform with his band. During from Drew at the start of his his early days in Nashville, he sophomore year when his star recorded two songs that made the was rising quickly on the regional charts. national scene. His father told Friends, fellow musicians, and him “…through all the fame, media icons seem to have the press, and glory, always same response when asked about remember to just be a good guy.” CMac—”Everybody loves Charlie Mac’s voice filled with Charlie Mac far right with fellow Mississippians, Jim Michie, Stevie CMac!” Country star and Grand Ray Anderson, and Sid Herring. emotion when he shared, “That Ole Opry member T. Graham one comment says it all to me.” Brown confirms, “They broke the mold when they made Charlie Manning confirmed it was the best he had ever received and its Mac. He is a great guy with a musical soul. His personality is as big simplicity was monumental in his daily life. Manning added, “I love as his jackets are wild. God bless Charlie Mac, and long may he Charlie Mac. Heck, everybody loves Charlie Mac. He was a great continue to celebrate something, anything!” sportscaster on the radio and on TV. His love and passion for rock Elizabeth Carter Scott, a Memphis Realtor and former Queen and roll is evident as he continues to sing regularly with his band. of Memphi, the oldest secret society with the Memphis Cotton Charlie Mac has passion. Always has had it. Whether it be sports or Carnival, noted, “…the era of the ‘60s was truly magical. People rock and roll, he attacks it with that passion. I mentioned earlier that would come from all over North Mississippi to hear bands like everybody loves Charlie Mac, and that’s because he is a good guy.” Tommy Burke and The Counts, The Gants, The Gentrys, Joe Frank Charlie Mac appears regularly throughout the Nashville area with and the Knights—and Charlie Mac was right there in the middle his band, CMac and The Rhythm Machine. He resides in Nashville with them. In fact he still ends many of his shows with the anthem, with his wife, Betty. He has two daughters, Emily and Carrie. DM “Shout,” which ended most of the shows back then.” For more information about Charlie Mac, visit his website One accolade that truly resonated was by Archie Manning, the charlie.mcalexander@gmail.com beloved former quarterback at Ole Miss and the New Orleans Saints, DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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A Grateful Return From his third-grade newspaper to The Boston Globe, the circuitous journey that brought Curtis Wilkie home BY MAUDE SCHUYLER CLAY PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF CURTIS WILKIE
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Portrait of Wilkie by Maude Schuyler Clay taken in Oxford, Mississippi 2024.
Wilkie working The Boston Globe desk at the 1980 Democratic Convention in New York City.
y Curtis Wilkie’s own admission, he was “not a great student,” but he was always drawn to stories and reportage. That natural inclination turned out to be a lifelong passion, as Wilkie was recently honored with the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.
B
Wilkie was on the road to his journalistic calling at a very early age: in the third grade, he put out his own onepage newspaper, which he delivered by bicycle, and not too much later he was regularly publishing his pieces in Summit’s daily newspaper, the Southwest Times. Although Delta-native Wilkie was born in Greenville, in 1940, he had eventually moved with his mother to Oxford and then Summit, where she held DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Civil Rights demonstration in Clarksdale, 1963, when Wilkie (pictured in sport coat) worked at the Clarksdale Press Register.
1973 Inauguration of Nixon, Washington D.C.
several positions at Southwest Junior College including dean of women, a registrar, and teacher of psychology and English. Wilkie’s stepfather was a kind and learned Presbyterian minister named John Leighton Stuart Jr., who had grown up in China after his father was appointed ambassador to China by Harry Truman. After graduating from high school, he attended Ole Miss for a couple of years before he succumbed to what he calls “Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’ syndrome:” he took off for the wild West, eventually landing in Los Angeles. After hanging out in California for a few months, he was “finally relegated to living on chocolate bars”—i.e., he was broke and starving—when he appealed to his mother and stepfather to send him the train fare home to Summit. Since they were not amenable to his living at home without a job, he went to work at a local quilt factory that summer, his “first and last attempt at manual labor.” In September of 1962, Wilkie decided to reenroll in school in Oxford, where he
the Ole Miss campus to deal with the clash between the segregationists—some armed with guns but most with clubs and rocks—and a group of preachers (including a young Duncan Gray) and a few peaceful students, teachers, and Oxford citizens who believed that Meredith should be allowed to pursue an education there. Wilkie found himself in the midst of a full-scale riot. Teargassed but unhurt, he was so profoundly affected by the violence and racist vitriol he witnessed in which two people died and many more were injured, that he took his chosen vocation—journalism—to a new dedicated level. After graduating in 1963, Wilkie landed his first job as a reporter in the Delta at the Clarksdale Press Register. There he vacillated between writing about such small-town events as fires, fairs, and farming and heavier subjects such as the Voting Rights Act, Brown v. Board of Education, and 1964’s Freedom Summer. When Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and Senator Robert Kennedy came to the Delta, Wilkie interviewed and sometimes traveled with
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partied a lot with his fellow SAE fraternity brothers but nevertheless resigned himself to pursuing a degree in journalism. This also happened to be the precise time that Ole Miss was being integrated by an African American Air Force veteran
Wilkie student ID at Ole Miss 1958-59.
named James Meredith. Mississippi’s then-governor Ross Barnett, an avid segregationist, was hell-bent on preventing African American students from integrating and attending the University of Mississippi. U.S. Marshals as well as the National Guard were ultimately called to
Wilkie with Jimmy Carter, 1980 Democratic Convention New York City.
them. In 1968, he was with King in Marks, Mississippi, for The Poor People’s Campaign—The Mule Train—just a few days before King was fatally shot in Memphis. Little did the small-town Delta reporter know that, in just a few short years, he would be a respected member of the press corps or “The Boys on the Bus,” as they were affectionately dubbed by writer Timothy Crouse in his 1972 celebrated best seller of the same name. Wilkie was married and the father of two children by the time he left Mississippi in 1969. Thanks to receiving a Congressional fellowship, he and his family headed north to Washington, D.C., where he worked on Capitol Hill for two years before moving to Delaware, first to be a reporter and eventually a deputy editor of the DuPont-owned News-Journal in Wilmington. But after a time, that job didn’t exactly work out. He was considered to be a member of the socalled “New Journalism,” namely those who had covered Civil Rights and Vietnam, so he left in the midst of a self-
Wilkie with the late David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and writer.
described “I quit, you’re fired” scenario over vastly different political views and disagreements over editorial control. It was time to give some serious thought about where he did want to work. His three choices were The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The New York
Times. The Globe won out, and Wilkie soon established himself in Boston as a tough but fair-minded writer, albeit one who spoke with a funny, almost unintelligible Southern accent. In his unique position as an observant Southerner in the north, he witnessed, DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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At the 1980 Democratic Convention in New York City with The Boston Globe lawyers and reporters.
while covering Boston’s violent bussing riots, pretty much the same racism that he thought he was escaping in Mississippi. He brought a sense of the menacing absurd to the Irish Mafia Boss Whitey Bolger and his brother, Billy, who was then Massachusetts State Senate President. The Globe was one of Billy Bolger’s frequent targets, but “he always talked to me,” says Wilkie, “because I listened to all his rants, even the ones about his sainted, ‘he-just-got-a-bad-rap,’ brother, Whitey.” (Whitey Bolger was thought to have killed at least twenty people, including his own goddaughter, who he believed had “ratted him out.”) In 1976 Wilkie told his editors that he wanted to cover the national political beat and was given a kind of joking, “let’s see what he thinks he can do with this nobody guy” assignment: covering fellow Southerner and presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. Wilkie got the last laugh; he covered Carter’s 1976 winning campaign, and for four years he was the Globe’s correspondent for the White House. Carter’s less successful 1980 campaign for re-election made Wilkie “appreciate even more than ever the underdog.” The next Southern candidate he would cover, twelve years later, would be Bill Clinton. After initially being sent on assignment to Israel to cover the Israeli-Palestinian 52 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
conflict in the 1980s, Wilkie next established himself as a “war reporter.” He would spend the next decade covering just about every war around the globe for the Globe: the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon, 1982-87; civil war in Lebanon, 1982-87; war in Tripoli, Lebanon, between PLO and insurgent Palestinian factions, 1983; Romanian Revolution, 1989-90; First Gulf War in Israel, 1991; civil war in Somalia, 1993. Wars and cold weather finally “got to him,” and in the mid-nineties he moved from Boston to New Orleans, still keeping his job as a correspondent for the Globe. By the year 1999, having one book under his belt, Arkansas Mischief with Jim McDougal, Wilkie wanted to write the one that he thought he really knew a little something about—the Deep South. He accepted a buyout from the Globe, and the resulting book, published in 2001, was Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South. The book was a heartfelt story told from the point of view of one taking a deep personal look at not only all that had shaped him, but how some of those events had played out in the wider world from which he was now “retiring.” Jonathan Yardley, literary critic at the Washington Post, said of Dixie: “Because Wilkie is an honest reporter, he doesn’t make claims for his story that it cannot sustain. He doesn’t
Wilkie with a Shimon Peres poster, spoofing as “Dancing for Dollars” in Jerusalem c. 1985.
represent himself as a hero of the civilrights era, and he’s modest—doubtless too modest—about the stories he wrote while covering it. He is content to present himself as someone who was lucky enough to be at a certain place in a certain time and who took advantage of the opportunities it offered him. His tale ends on a grace note: not merely reconciliation with his native South but a grateful return to it.” But Wilkie did not “retire” in any sense of the word. He covered the 2000 presidential race for the Globe, and though he kept the house in New Orleans for a
Books by CURTIS WILKIE
long time, he decided it was time to get a place in Mississippi. His “coming home” mission was twofold: teaching journalism at his alma mater, Ole Miss, and being nearer to his daughter, Leighton Wilkie McCool, and her family, who lived in Oxford. Wilkie’s return to his native Mississippi has guided and shaped countless students who aspired to be journalists. Wilkie retired from the Ole Miss School of Journalism in 2020, and when asked what he thought he had accomplished as a teacher, he said, “I tried to give them the tools for how to write a clear story: putting
“Several passions are important to Southern men.
The love of a good woman ranks slightly ahead of the exhilaration that comes from a sip of sour-mash whiskey. Other pleasures include greeting the chill dawn in a deer stand, debating the merits of barbecue from North Carolina, Tennessee or Texas, expanding on stories that improve with age, and enjoying the bonhomie of friends. Then there is football.” – Excerpt from Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South, by Curtis Wilke DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Wilkie, with his beloved dog, Willie, named for his great friend Willie Morris.
Cook
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WITH VIKING
stories together piece by piece, paragraph by paragraph, word by word. One of the ways I did that was to assign them as many great writers, like Faulkner and Miss Welty and Barry Hannah, and as many well-written journalism pieces (by David Halberstam, Tom Oliphant, Willie Morris—all friends and former colleagues) as I could. And I remembered how college students, like the one I once was, were thrust into the world of being on their own for the first time. I tried to teach them to have a deep respect for knowledge and to treat them with kindness, like my stepfather had done for me. I wanted to make them believe their craft was important and that good writing could lead whoever was reading it to know something more than they did before they read it.” In addition to Curtis Wilkie’s success as journalist, his humor and gift as a storyteller are qualities greatly treasured by those who know him. He radiates a kind of rare, deep kindness and compassion that permeate his writing. And when asked about why he returned home to Mississippi after his many adventures and successes around the world? He simply answered, “Because people are kinder here.” DM
New Year, new look
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CELEBRATION at the Preserve The Southern Tradition of Quail Hunting is alive and well in Tallahatchie County BY TONY KINTON • PHOTOGRAPHY BY RORY DOYLE
C
AL AND I BONDED RATHER QUICKLY. The
inauguration of this linking took flight during my first trip to Trout Valley Quail Preserve just outside Charleston, Mississippi, and even before the dogs were cast we had each exhibited some penchant for class. Said display was evidenced by the uncasing of A-5 shotguns, mine a 20 and his that reverenced Sweet 16. Both used rigorously yet both solidly functional. Belgium birthed, these perfected products were conceived in that fertile mind of John Moses Browning. Instruments and concepts that would stand alone in exclusivity. There have been others similar, but none sibling-close kin of the Belgium.
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Bonnie brings a quail to hand on Trout Valley Quail Preserve.
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There’s nothing more thrilling than seeing a Bobwhite in flight. Pictured, Bud Trout with Anne.
Accelerating with great haste on that grand day, bonding didn’t stop with shotguns. By the time an exquisite little Brittany named Moonshine, became static at the encounter of olfactory bliss a third time, Cal and I were talking Faulkner. Wendell Berry as well. Quoting him as we walked: Now, surely, I am getting old, for my memory of myself as a young man seems now complete, as a story told. The young man leaps and lands on an old man’s legs.” I provided the greater credence to those words, for I was old even back then. Birds flushed, A-5s sang harmony, and we nodded our respect and admiration for the quail. And oh the quail! A grand little bird. The “Gentleman’s Bird” he is often labeled. There is truth in that name, but its poetic word picture has aged, faded, has become unfamiliar. What once was no longer is, 60 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
reasons why varied and numerous, some falling into the category of conjecture rather than fact. But for whatever reasons, quail have fallen on hard times, the irrefutable proclamation from both country folk and citified practitioners heard from as far back as the 1950s. It—that proclamation—was a woeful moan. Quail were declining. An early member of the Baby Boomer Fraternity, I began quail exploits during embryonic years of the 1960s. Seemed then that pea-patch, fence-row, ditch-bank quail were as ubiquitous as tattered overalls and rubber boots. These were the glory days— as I saw them. The old folks countered. Still, I was satisfied. I basked in the glow. Then my life was suddenly destroyed. Not destruction as I initially perceived but certainly change. College and graduate school drew me from my country comfort zone, but I eventually walked away with
shiny diplomas. Big cities beckoned. I went to work. Quail hunting was not part of the job. Years passed. I became restless, homesick I suppose. And thanks to the words of Sherwood Anderson, I elected to go back to my “postage stamp of native soil.” It, that 1979 move, proved a wise decision. But quail weren’t waiting my return. The old places were new, broken into smaller blocks and carpeted with pine plantations or manicured landscapes and showing nary a sprig of broom sedge. Minus pea patches, too. After wriggling from the fetal position that I often assumed during bouts of remorse over what I concluded was a general declination of things held dear, I began exploring what to me and to the area was a new entity, an entity that has improved with knowledge and experience and has become a bright spot in the quail
Trout Valley’s Queen Anne’s Lace standing over birds.
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.
“SO WHAT IS A QUAIL PRESERVE PRESERVING? BIRDS, BIRD DOGS, FINE TABLE FARE, REFINED COUNTRY CAMARADERIE, THE LANDSCAPE ITSELF, AN ENTIRE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE THAT ENCAPSULATES ALL OF IT? YES, ALL OF THAT...”
Veteran bird dogs: Bonnie and Lily.
Sam Hobson puts his A-5 Belgium Browning through the paces.
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arena. This entity I reference is the shooting preserve, the focus of my initial meeting with Cal Trout. The shooting preserve can be difficult to understand and can be rejected with no clear knowledge of what it is. Admittedly, a preserve does not contain wild-raised birds, but the truly solid preserves—the ones you should visit—do maintain habitat common to this bird. And birds that are released onto those properties are flight conditioned and savvy. Rare it is on such properties to encounter quail that disappoint when they flush. That flurry of wings and hastened flight are satisfying, thrilling, nerve wracking to both the novice and veteran. While I have no system by which to verify a particular tale’s veracity, the old folks told of an occasional hunter their age, said hunter not fully adroit in quail fields. His worn single barrel lacking, our neophyte went to the hardware store and bought a Model 12. He had likely enjoyed a fair-tomiddling crop that year. This new owner joined his chapped-hands comrades one glorious morning. Seems one of those boisterous and abundant coveys was immediately present, stretching and preening and chittering among their consorts and heading away from that rear-to-rear formation in which they spent the night and were now puttering around for breakfast. The dogs caught up. That new owner of the Model 12 joined two, both more schooled than he, and when the covey burst upward five shots rang. Three from an A-5 and two from a Smith side-by-side. The Model 12’s owner stood dumbfounded. “I missed.” Then a deeper truth emerged. When the ruckus started with that intoxicating flush, our man had pressed the slide release rather than the safety. Summarily, he shucked one shell from the chamber and two from the magazine, never once denting a primer. Those onlookers pointed out this infraction; he denied. But proof said otherwise. There, just off his boot toe on the right side, lay three perfectly good paper-hulled No. 8s. Or so the story goes. The seasoned birds at Trout Valley Quail provide a setting in which such stories are lived out every day. Trout Valley Quail grew from tragedy. A visit to the website outlines this and affords the visitor an in-depth look at life and healing. There, under the Back Story tab, 62 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Trout and his English Cocker Spaniel, Pearl, putting his childhood friend, Sam Hobson, on birds.
The hunting party: Tony Kinton, Bud Trout, Sam Hobson, Cal Trout, and Mary Francis Mangum, enter the field with hunting companions, Pearl, Lily, and Chile.
Lily: the nose of an expert.
The string is ready/
Kinton’s Rizzini shotgun
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you’ll find a great deal of information regarding the history of Trout Valley. It’s a worthwhile read. There Trout, opens with a bold statement: “In many ways quail hunting in North Mississippi saved my life. This is not hyperbole. I mean the act of hunting with friends and family, the responsibility of caring for and tending to the land and habitat game birds call home, as well as the dogs we use to pursue them was the perfect prescription for what ailed me back in 2007.” This story is poignant. And now, after fifteen years of Trout Valley Quail being in operation, the story is growing, developing, far from over. Visitors, both first timers and repeats, come from a great many locales. 64 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Trout notes, “Over the years we’ve developed a community of bird hunters from Alaska to Great Britain; Orlando to New York; New Mexico to right here at home.” Trout soon found he needed a way to keep in touch and share stories with this expanding community. Another tab on the site is Standing Point. It contain’s his newsletter and podcast: Standing Point: Stories from Americans Afield. There Cal writes: “For over a decade I have been quail hunting Mississippi, but I’ve hunted all other game native to this area all my life. Throughout the years I have tried to pay attention and learn all that I am capable of learning from wingshooters, young and old. It is in the
spirit of sharing what I have heard, learned and seen that I thought to develop Standing Point. “[It] is far more than stories. Or strategies. Or information. It’s my way of creating a community for those who look at life through lenses colored by dogs, flushes, and most importantly, the people closest to them” A trip to Trout Valley Quail is one of intrigue. So is a “trip” to the website: troutvalleyquail.com. Recently the Rotary Clubs of Hernando and Charleston asked him to speak at their weekly meetings. While there Cal presented insight to quail loss and the validity of preserves:
Bud Trout (Cal’s father) readies his Winchester 101 as Pearl flushes a Bobwhite for him.
“The argument you hear from people who study this [quail loss] for a living is simple, straightforward, and in my estimation the most meritorious argument. It may be summed up in a single sentence, paraphrasing Wendell Berry: ‘No creature is viable outside its enveloping life support system’. “We can offer quail a life support system by raising them in captivity. While this does preserve them, it is not in the self-sustaining way we would all prefer, having thoroughly destroyed their natural habitat concurrent to introduction of non-native predator species across much of the Bobwhite Belt. Not to mention a parasitic problem we are just beginning to uncover. The problem,
then, is one of flora and fauna… things seen and unseen.” Well said. And he goes on to highlight some of the values and joys of a preserve hunt: “And so we also get to do probably my favorite thing, [and that is] take children who have never seen a bird dog work or a covey flush, on their first hunt. I can’t explain the thrill I get watching men show their grandchildren the great sport of their youth. It may be the highlight of my year every time it happens, and it normally happens several times a year.” Referencing Trout Valley Quail and his hope for what comes next, Cal says, “Remaining rooted in the past, we are branching out into the future to preserve and provide the habitat for people’s best memories of days afield.” To ensure the happiness of his customers and build for the ensuing seasons, he’s developed a staff in which he takes great pride. “Our partnerships are strategic in nature. A former employee on Trout Valley Farm, Gary Lee Cashaw and his wife, Ida Mae, clean birds and have helped keep customers coming back with the quality of the finished product they take home. “With our guides, Brannon Kirby is a high-level crappie guide and owns Franklin Fishing Tours. Karla Greer and Mary Francis Mangum are both professional dog
trainers, Karla with Rolling Thunder Kennels and Mary Francis with Mangum K9 Services. Those two women can walk you into the ground, clean your birds and train your bird dog. Eddy Taylor of Taylor Kennels guides for us as well sometimes. He is a multi-generational all-age field trial trainer who trained and campaigned the Purina 2022 Gundog for the year. So if you’re an outdoorsman, a wing shooter, an angler—a man, woman or child, we have something for you. I try to offer guides who operate as value-added corollary to Trout Valley Quail.” So now this young man who once leapt and landed on old man’s legs shall close his part with a thank you to Cal—for his words and his bird dogs and his Trout Valley Quail. I shall, as I have countless times, visit again. And I’ll finish this story with his final thoughts on Preserves: “So what is a quail preserve preserving? Birds, bird dogs, fine table fare, refined country camaraderie, the landscape itself, an entire language and culture that encapsulates all of it? “Yes, all of that. But perhaps most importantly it preserves the possibility and context for people to get outside and enjoy a sport upon the face of God’s creation, which in turn increases our concern for all the rest of His work.” DM
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from
Mississippi Roots to MUSIC MOGUL
Tunica native Bradford Cobb became one of LA’s top music-biz magnates, but Mississippi is still home BY JIM BEAUGEZ • PHOTOS COURTESY BRADFORD COBB
or football fans of Mississippi’s two largest universities, 2014 was already a season to celebrate—both the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Ole Miss Rebels were amid historic, whirlwind seasons.
F
Cobb with Katy Perry at 2009 Grammy party. 68 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Katy Perry, Bradford Cobb, Octavia Spencer and friends, October 4, 2014 at Ole Miss after win over Alabama.
169th Commencement address in The Grove at University of Mississippi, May 7, 2022.
A ten-win State team, led by future NFL star Dak Prescott, spent three weeks at number one in the first-ever College Football Playoff rankings. Ole Miss, also a top-five team during the season, eventually got the last word by winning a hotly contested Egg Bowl. But on October 4, Oxford was the center of the college football universe, thanks in large part to a highly successful but behind-the-scenes alum named Bradford Cobb. That morning, as news spread that pop superstar Katy Perry had arrived on campus to serve as ESPN College GameDay’s celebrity guest picker, the Grove swelled with curious onlookers.
Perry charmed co-hosts Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit during the telecast, going 7–2 in her game picks, and she won over the crowd by hoisting a corn dog in the air to deride Ole Miss rivals LSU. Those television theatrics—and indeed, much of Perry’s career—were organized in large part by Cobb, a Tunica farmer turned music mogul who bet on himself and won big. Since moving to Los Angeles in 1998, Cobb has worked with artists like the Go-Go’s, the best-selling all-female rock group of all time, the B52’s and Tracy Chapman. And for the past two decades, Perry has been his number one client. Growing up in the north Delta countryside, Cobb worked on the family farm, where his parents, Brad and Brenda Cobb, grew cotton and soybeans. When they weren’t in the fields, his father would
spin records by bands like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, who found inspiration in the music that sprang from the flat alluvial land where the Cobbs lived. As a college student, Cobb studied English but didn’t feel a pull to any specific vocation. Without realizing it, though, he was already assembling the foundation of his future life’s work in music. Cobb’s initiative in sending a demo from his friends’ band, This Living Hand, to E Pluribus Unum Records—an upstart label fronted by Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz—landed the group a recording contract. Then, an internship with William Morris Agency in care of Amory native and Hollywood super-agent Sam Haskell put him in the LA headquarters of one of the world’s largest DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Perry and Cobb at 2013 Grammy party.
Cobb with Tracy Chapman in 2004. 70 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
talent firms—in the mailroom, to be specific, but close enough to see how the entertainment business worked. “I realized the manager is the one who is involved in all aspects of the artists’ career, and the music agent is really taking direction from the managers,” says Cobb, now 50, from his home in LA. “You’re much more involved and in direct partnership with the artists themselves.” Yet, after graduating in 1996, Cobb returned to Tunica to work on the farm. He stayed for a year and a half—long enough to know with certainty his passions lay elsewhere. So, in 1998, he loaded a moving truck and drove west, finding a home with Steve Jensen and Martin Kirkup at Direct Management Group, which happened to be the same office where he mailed This Living Hand’s music a few years earlier. “I had to take some chances and see where the road goes and know that no decision would be a fatal move,” he says. “I just needed to get off the starting block and explore and try some things, like I did with the internship.” At Direct Management Group, he learned how to manage artists and deal with different personalities, using the communications skills he picked up in college to establish rapport with roster artists. “Sometimes you have to be like a psychologist, so there were all these skills you need,” he says. “You have a very close relationship with the artist. They can’t be your best friend, but you have to know them like they are.” Cobb met Perry through a friend of a friend in 2004 when he was looking for a new young artist to sign with the management company. She already had a production deal with Glen Ballard—the Natchez native behind Alanis Morrisette’s massive 1995 album Jagged Little Pill and co-writer of the #1 Billboard Hot 100 hits “Man in the Mirror” for Michael Jackson and “Hold On” for Wilson Phillips—but the handoff to Cobb went smoothly. Cobb then guided Perry to sign with Capitol Records, and they readied her breakthrough album, One of the Boys. “She stood out and made you curious enough to pay attention, and she took full advantage of it,” he says. While One of the Boys worked its way up the charts in the summer of 2008, Cobb landed Perry a spot on the Vans Warped Tour traveling
Cobb and Bailey families at the Southern Cotton Ginners Association Annual Meeting and Honors Banquet, February 2024. Brandon Mills, Ann Collins Bailey, Brad Cobb, Brenda Cobb, Gary Bailey, Bradford Cobb, Lee Bailey, Bren Bailey, Ann Britt, Albert Brit, Darrell Bailey, and Elizabeth Bailey.
festival, a move that gave her credibility with the punk rock crowd—typically a more cynical bunch than the pop audiences who would soon embrace her. “We were playing in dirt fields day after day after day, and she was attracting bigger and bigger crowds, and she really earned her chops,” he says. “She became a better performer, and she earned the respect of all the people that worked for her and all those punk bands.” As Perry’s star rose, Cobb continued his role as her behind-the-scenes advisor and manager. The industry took notice, too, as Billboard named him to its 40 Under 40 list in 2013 and then to its Power List of top 100 music executives. In 2022, he finally stepped on stage to deliver the commencement address at his alma mater, twenty-five years after skipping his own graduation ceremony. He implored the new graduates to find their passions and get moving. “Not everybody agrees with the ‘follow your bliss’ mantra,” he says, “and I understand what they’re saying—like, ‘Don’t you know that job pathway has a success rate of five percent?’ I get it. But I’m glad Katy didn’t say that, and I think
The Direct Management team with Katy Perry. Bradford Cobb, Ngoc Hoang-DelVecchio, Perry, Michelle Carnero, and Steve Jensen. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Cobb with his partner, Brandon Mills, in front of a Charlie Buckley painting of Tunica landmarks.
Sam Haskell, Dolly Parton, and Cobb at the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards.
Glen Ballard and Cobb in Oxford, April 2023. 72 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
my dad’s glad The Rolling Stones didn’t say that.” On that crisp Saturday morning in 2014, #11 Ole Miss pulled off a fourthquarter comeback against #3 Alabama, sealing a 23–17 win on a 10-yard touchdown pass with less than three minutes left on the game clock. VaughtHemingway stadium was set to explode, and as time ran out, fans rushed the field and began tearing down the goalposts in celebration. Perry hopped the brick wall, too, and when her security guard lunged to catch a fan who had planted a kiss on Perry on his way into the crowd, she ducked into the melee. Cobb, who was celebrating with Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer, says she disappeared for ten minutes. “The security guard was beside himself—he was so freaked out,” Cobb says. “But she was happy as can be among the fans, fearless as always.” Today, Cobb returns to Mississippi more often than ever. His homes in LA and Oxford are decorated with paintings and photography by artists from the state, and he makes a point to underscore that while he lives in L.A., Mississippi is his home. “With my clients, I’ve been lucky to travel all over the world, and there are very few places that still have the warmth and joy for me that the Mississippi Delta does,” he says. “I really do miss it, and I’ve been coming back a lot more over the years.”DM
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2025
TOURISM SECTION American Music Exhibit at Grammy Museum Mississippi Do the Delta Like a Local • Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville Delta Detours
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ICONS
&Memories
250 Years of American Music at the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi BY JOEY LEE • PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACQUES JOHNSON
HERE’S SOMETHING MAGICAL ABOUT MUSIC. It’s more than entertainment—it’s a powerful way to connect with our past, stir up special memories, and create shared experiences. Whether it’s the song that played during your first kiss or the anthem of your youth (mine was anything by Ozzy), music has a unique ability to bring us together.
T
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As the United States nears its 250th anniversary, the Music America: Iconic Objects from America’s Music History exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi gives visitors the chance to look back on the songs that helped shape who we are as a nation. “Since the nation’s inception, music has informed our national identity, interpreted it, and inspired it,” Emily Havens, GRAMMY Museum Mississippi Executive
Director, explained. “Be it sacred or secular, urban or rural, folk or pop, classical or experimental, it all adds up to the soundtrack of our American history. “Music America tells the complex story of American music through instruments, handwritten original lyrics, books, photographs, costumes, and other objects from major artists across genres and centuries.” Curated by the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music, this exhibit takes visitors through a rich
Costume from The Village People
Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” wedding dress
Gene Autry’s cowboy boots, Hank William’s guitar, and John A. Lomax’s Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
Bruce Springsteen’s outfit from the cover of his 1984 album, Born in the U.S.A.
tapestry of sound, culture, and history. It runs now through April 13.
handwritten lyrics by John Mellencamp or a hymnal over 200 years old. You can see Frank Sinatra’s ukulele and the outfit Springsteen wore on the cover of his 1984 album Born in the USA. These items, and many more like them, give visitors a tangible connection to the legends who owned them.
A Journey Through Musical Legends The collection is a who’s who of musical royalty: Leonard Bernstein, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix, Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, and Whitney Houston, to name a few. The exhibit provides visitors with a breathtaking array of artifacts that tell the story of America’s musical evolution. Imagine standing inches away from
Mississippi’s Musical Legacy For Mississippians, Music America is more than a celebration of national history—it’s a testament to our deep-rooted DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Ella Fitzgerald’s dress, Frank Sinatra’s never-before-seen ukulele used to propose to his first wife, a fox fur stole worn by Billie Holiday, and a Rickenbacker “Frying Pan.”
Thomas Edison’s cylinder phonograph—the birth of the modern music industry.
as the songs themselves, forever changing how audiences experienced their favorite artists. “The ‘Like a Virgin’ dress symbolizes a pivotal moment in music history when music videos became just as important as the songs themselves,” Havens said.
Elvis Presley’s blue velvet 1956 Tupelo concert shirt.
contributions to American music. From Elvis to B.B. King and John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, Willie Dixon, Charlie Pride, and others, Mississippi’s influence reverberates through the exhibit. Mississippi’s musical legacy weaves into the fabric of the nation’s soundtrack, which makes this exhibit a powerful acknowledgment of its role in shaping American culture. Rare Finds “My favorite ironic object is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s iconic ‘Number 1’ guitar,” Havens said. “What makes it ironic is that 78 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
despite its shabby, well-worn condition— reflecting the intensity of his performances—the guitar became a symbol of his mastery and innovative approach to the blues. The very imperfections that make it look well-used are what give it such powerful, authentic character, making it one of the most iconic instruments in rock and blues history.” Fans of 1980s pop culture will appreciate Madonna’s unforgettable Like a Virgin dress, displayed in the section dedicated to the rise of MTV. This nod to the early days of music videos shows how visual storytelling became as important to music
Unparalleled Access to Musical History Visiting only two states and Washington, D.C., this is a rare chance to experience the breadth of America’s musical history up close, making it a must-see for fans and curious visitors alike. “This exhibition highlights the profound impact of legendary artists, showcasing their groundbreaking contributions to shaping the sound and culture of our nation,” Havens said. “It’s a powerful tribute to the artists who defined and transformed American music, making it an unforgettable experience.” Visitors leave Music America with more than memories—they carry the heartbeat of a nation’s soundtrack. From the deep blues of B.B. King to the groundbreaking rock of Jimi Hendrix, from Johnny Cash’s rebellious country to Madonna’s game-changing pop, this exhibit captures the vibrant, evolving spirit of American music. Music America illustrates how music shaped our national identity. It tells the story of our country in a way that words alone never could. DM The Music America exhibit is open until April 13. For more information visit grammymuseumms.org.
S pe n d a Weekend At the Crossroads! Hear Live Blues every night In clarksdale, ms PHOTO BY RORY DOYLE
Experience over a dozen festivals every year This project is supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number ARPA-1032 awarded to the Coahoma County Tourism Commission by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
UPCOMING EVENTS 2025 • 1/24-26 – Clarksdale Film & Music Festival • 3/29 – Tater Superbad Blues Festival • 4/10-13 – Juke Joint Festival & Related Events • 4/13 – Cat Head Mini Blues Fest I • 5/10 – Clarksdale Caravan Music Fest • 5/23-24 – Ground Zero Blues Club Anniversary Weekend • 5/24 – Deak’s Harmonica Block Party • 5/25 – Bad Apple Blues Festival
• 6/12-15 – B.A.M. Fest (Birthplace of American Music) • 8/8-10 – Sunflower River Blues & Gospel Festival • 8/8-10 – Cat Head 23rd Anniversary Weekend • 8/30 – Red’s Old-Timers Blues Fest • 9/26-27 – Mighty Roots Music Festival • 10/5 – Hopson Pumpkin Pickin’ Festival • 10/8-11 – King Biscuit Blues Festival (Helena, Arkansas)
• 10/12 – Clarksdale Super Blues Sunday: Bluesberry October Fest, Cat Head Mini Blues Fest, Ground Zero, Pinetop Perkins Homecoming, Red’s, and more! • 10/16-18 – Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival • 10/17-18 – Special Blues Event TBA • 10/23-26 – Hambone Festival • 10/25 – Cruz’n The Crossroads Car & Truck Show • 12/31 – Celebrate New Year’s at the Crossroads!
Do the DELTA like a LOCAL W
e asked Delta Magazine readers and locals in the know to share some of their favorite things to eat, see, and do when friends and family come to visit the Delta! We’ve gathered some great tips and ideas for everything from road trips and walking tour itineraries in Clarksdale to lots of blues destinations, a fun girls’ weekend in
Greenwood, and even kayaking on Deer Creek and exploring the levee. Keep this issue and use our Delta Detours section, as a resource for ideas to add to your own “must-do” list for when you have company coming to town (or if you’re just planning a fun weekend) so you can show your guests how to do the Delta like a local!
Cooking class at Viking Cooking School
For the Girls
PRYOR HACKLEMAN, GREENWOOD EVENT PLANNER
Depending on my guests, I would have different activities, but if I have a group of girlfriends from out of town come—this is what I would line up to eat, drink, and do with them at my favorite local places. First, let’s grab lunch at San Miguel on Park Avenue. A total shopping center vibe on the outside, but don’t let that fool you. This Mexican restaurant and market is an authentic gem, and the food is amazing! Then, I would grab some Topo Chico at their market to make at-home cocktails later. There are several options for after lunch. If my friends are shoppers or spa-goers, you can make it a day at the Viking Cooking School, shop in the store, make an appointment at The Alluvian Spa, and sit and chat in the sauna. Book a cooking class, or better yet, a cocktail class—then dinner at Giardina’s. I always start out with a Delta Gem cocktail there. We usually get a double order of onion rings to start and then order a filet and spinach. Skip dessert and end the night with an espresso martini! If my girls are shoppers, then I make sure Traderhorn Furniture is open to look at home accessories. Then off to all our wonderful Cocktails at Giardina’s 80 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Giardina’s in Greenwood
Fried salad at Fan and Johnny’s
downtown shops. I would start at Howard & Marsh, then next Details, and then work my way down the street. Mississippi Gift Company, Fincher’s, Lynbar Jewelers, Russell’s Antiques, Sprout, Osmanthus, Monograms and More. We would round the corner and finish at Smith and Company. We could do cocktails at The Alluvian, then walk to dinner at Fan & Johnny’s. Summer or winter, no matter the season, I am getting the crab bisque. Then I always look at the specials. They are so unique, and I have never had one I didn’t like. Fan and Johnny’s is also a great lunch spot. My go-to is what I call the “fried salad.” It is fried crawfish tails, fried asparagus, feta, cherry tomatoes, onions, and bowtie pasta on top of lettuce with a remoulade dressing. And finally, if they want to let loose and party, we can hit up the latenight bar, The Blue Magnolia, on Howard Street.
Delta Bohemian Tours, based in Clarksdale
Club Ebony in Indianola
We Asked:
What’s on your Must-See/Must-Do list in the Delta? Doe’s in Greenville!
- Katheryn Coleman
Going to the Thompson House in Leland for dinner and cocktails is a new favorite! - DM Editor Cindy Coopwood
Po’ Monkey’s in Merigold was incredible. But after the loss of Willie Seaberry, it’s sadly no more. Now it’s Red’s Lounge in Clarksdale, and luckily, after the passing of owner Red Paden, it lives on through the efforts of his son.
In Leland, try the Thompson House Inn’s signature cocktail, The B.B. King!
– Mike Lucas
Kathryn’s on Moon Lake, great food that draws crowds from all over the Delta.
– Lee Ellinburg
The Grammy Museum for sure! – Rita Johnson
My favorites are Fratesi’s in Leland, the Viking Cooking School in Greenwood, and Crawdad’s in Merigold.
Fratesi’s in Leland GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland
— Doug McNeely
Take a Delta Bohemian Tour with Clarksdale native Chilly Billy Howell!!
– Madge Marley Howell
Checking out the B.B. King Museum and Club Ebony, then on to the Blue Biscuit in Indianola!
– Amy McKissack
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Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art in Clarksdale
When in Clarksdale
ROGER STOLLE, BLUES AFICIONADO, FOUNDER OF THE JUKE JOINT FESTIVAL AND OWNER OF CAT HEAD DELTA BLUES & FOLK ART
What I do with guests:
Take a local Clarksdale driving tour with a few stops – Cat Head, Hambone Art and Music, Bluesberry Café, Ground Zero Blues Club, Red’s juke joint, Messenger’s Pool Hall, New Roxy theater, Bad Apple Blues Club, the Crossroads marker, Hopson Plantation/Shack Up Inn, and Muddy Waters Cabin in Stovall. If we’re just walking downtown – I do a few stops and some Mississippi Blues Trail markers. Also, through Visit Clarksdale Tourism, we have a great (and free!) audio walking tour app for downtown. Take a regional driving tour with stops – First, the Crossroads marker, Hopson/Shack Up, and then on to Tutwiler. Make stops at the W.C. Handy site (where he first heard the blues), the mural on the back of the funeral home where Emmett Till’s body was brought, and the Sonny Boy Williamson II gravesite. Then, near Greenwood, most likely the Robert Johnson gravesite and Bryant’s Grocery, both on Money Road. Another fun day trip – Leave my store on Delta Avenue, which turns into Friar’s Point Road, heading towards Highway 1. Eat lunch at Kenoy’s, “home of the two-fisted burger,” across from Coahoma Community College. Then, turn right on Highway 1, drive by Moon Lake and do the little walking path and pretty cool pier stop. Drive on to Helena, Arkansas, to catch the King Biscuit Time radio show there at 12:15 p.m. weekdays, tour the Delta Cultural Center, and stop by Delta Dirt Distillery (an African American-owned distillery featuring vodka made in part with the sweet potatoes they grow). Then, head home and stop for dinner at the new Kathryn’s at Moon Lake. My favorite restaurants include – Rest Haven, Abe’s, Levon’s, and 82 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Delta Dirt Distillery in Helena, Arkansas
New Roxy in Clarksdale
Hooker Grocery. We also have some nice smaller options now, too, including The Den Again, Meraki with Little Sistas cooking, and Blue Cotton Baker. But my absolute favorite—for it’s feisty owner, Miss Betty, downscale ambiance and tasty, jumbo fried shrimp—is Ramon’s. For live music in Clarksdale, here are some favorites – Red’s – It’s the real-deal juke joint and is now being run by Orlando Paden, who took it over after his father Red Paden passed away last year. Ground Zero – General manager Sadie and booking manager Tameal, aka “T,” run a tight ship. Hambone – Tuesday’s are a bit of an institution now, attracting both locals and tourists. Bluesberry Café – Owned and run by total “characters,” Monday nights and weekend breakfasts feature an eclectic mix of local and touring blues acts. The Den Again Diner – New on the scene in an old building. Delta Blues Alley Cafe – A funky, downhome kind of place. Shack Up Inn – A variety of blues and other music, many weekends. Hopson Commissary – Under new ownership, they offer a lot more food options, and Monday’s happy hour with music is recommended. Why do folks visit the Delta? It’s like walking into a history book. What’s the best thing about the Delta on a Saturday night? It’s not Beale, Bourbon, or Lower Broadway.
Ramon’s restaurant in Clarksdale
Exploring Washington County
Red’s juke joint in Clarksdale
WES SMITH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE WASHINGTON COUNTY CONVENTION AND VISITOR’S BUREAU
What I like to do with guests:
If I am with people who are up for it, I like kayaking in Deer Creek. There are sections that are gorgeous, especially at twilight.
Favorite local restaurant:
Doe’s, of course, is a main go-to. The food is as good as it is famous, and it’s a great place to bump into friends from around Mississippi, or make new friends as you walk around. The whole Doe’s crew makes every visit feel like a family reunion.
Deer Creek in Leland
Other unique things to do in and around the Delta: I love riding Highway 1, or along the levee late in the day. I have a long and well researched Spotify playlist of songs performed by, written by, produced by, or arranged by Mississippians that’s the perfect soundtrack for exploring the area. Beautiful Delta scenery with a homegrown soundtrack makes for a great drive!
Why do people love the Delta so much?
In the last two years, Greenville has hosted more than 20,000 visitors from Viking Cruises. In talking with many of them, I found they are most surprised at the breadth of our cultural history, its impact worldwide, and how it in no way conforms to their preconceived notions of Mississippi.
Jim Henson Musuem in Leland
Doe’s Eat Place in Greenville
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03 . 15 . 25
MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM OF ART
5–9pm
FULL CHEF LINEUP & TICKETS at JXNFOODANDWINE.COM
H U T C H E S O N , PIERRE PRYER, SR., & MORE
NS, JACKSON KALB, GENO LEE, G A B R I E L PAS C U ZZ I , J O S E P H
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Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville
CAROLYN THOMBS
If you love antiques, gardening, interior design and taking a fun road trip to Nashville, mark your calendar now for the Antiques
Dawn Looney and Paige Hill, co-chairs of the Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville.
& Garden Show of Nashville the last weekend of January. This year celebrates the its thirty-fifth anniversary of the show held January 31 to February 2 at Nashville’s Music City Center. The inspiration for this year’s theme “Cultivating Home: Life Well Tended,” perfectly sums up the weekend’s events and notable speakers. Editor Cindy Coopwood caught up with the show’s co-chairs, Mississippi native, Dawn Looney, and Paige Hill, to discuss the details and behind the scenes workings of this year’s event. Keynote speakers include icons Brooke Shields and Sheryl Crow, who will share their own thoughts on what design elements inspire them or what it takes to transform a house into a home. With 150 dealers from across the country, visitors will have the opportunity not only to shop but also to hear from the show’s expert speakers, such as British floral designers Shane Connolly and Willow Crossley as well as designers Veere Grenney and Rita Konig. Proceeds from the event will support historic Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Nashville’s treasures botanical garden, arboretum, and art museum.
“
WARNER TIDWELL
Nashville is such a fun road trip from anywhere in Mississippi! Whether you’re a regular attendee of the Show or have never been and are interested in checking it out, this is going to be a great year to make the trip!” – DAWN LOONEY
2024 Antiques & Garden Show Entry Garden 88 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Dawn, being a Mississippi native and Ole Miss Graduate, can you give us a few more details on your Mississippi background and what led you to Nashville and your involvement with the A&G show? What’s your hometown? And anything else you want to add! Dawn: I’m a proud Mississippian—I grew up in Grenada and married a Clarksdale boy! Growing up in Mississippi, ever since I can remember, I’ve loved the flowers—especially the azaleas, gardenias, garden roses and the state flower, the iconic magnolia blossom—and the natural beauty of the state. That love of nature that was instilled in me early on has been one of the biggest influences on my life and design aesthetic. I also fell in love with McCartys Pottery in high school and have collected it ever since, which has additionally fueled in me a passion for design and interiors. I lived in Nashville right after college and fell in love with the city, so when the opportunity arose for my husband to work in Nashville, we jumped at the chance. Attending the Show had been on my bucket
list for years before I moved to Nashville, and then once I was here, I organically got involved through a friend in various volunteer roles. How has the Show grown and changed over its 35-year history? Dawn: The Antiques & Garden Show started small and has truly become one of the most loved and well-respected events of its kind in the country with a reputation that’s internationally known! Paige: The Show has also been able to drastically increase its contributions to its beneficiaries year after year—especially in the last five years—totaling an amount of $11 million since 1990. How far and wide is the reach for the Show’s dealers? Specifically, are any from Mississippi? Dawn: The dealers that exhibit at our Show come from across the country and as far as the UK! We’re excited to have Lina’s Interiors & Antiques from Leland, Mississippi at the 2025 Show.
WARNER TIDWELL
WARNER TIDWELL
Views of the 2024 AGS show floor.
What are some of the most unique offerings? Paige: When we began planning for the 2025 Show, we decided that we really wanted to lean into the talent that’s right here in Music City, so there will be a unique focus on Nashville this year! The Friday afternoon Designing Music City Lecture will feature Sheryl Crow and Lauren Akins, alongside their shared friend and Nashvillebased interior designer April Tomlin. We’ll also have live music performances from local artists throughout the Show weekend. There’s so much creativity in our own city, and we’re excited to spotlight that this year. What can attendees expect that’s new and exciting or different about this year’s show? What has the response been to Brooke Shields and Sheryl Crow’s involvement? Dawn: There’s been an overwhelming response to Brooke and Sheryl’s participation! While there’s a very public side to them, as with most celebrities, people are really intrigued and excited to get a glimpse into their personal home lives. Paige: We’re hoping to capture a very warm and cozy feel to the Show. We both love English design so much and were excited to incorporate that into the theme this year, as evidenced by the highly revered lecture speakers hailing from the UK. Tell our readers a little about the process of setting up the garden showcases. How long does it take and what’s involved in turning a convention center into a horticultural paradise? Dawn: Planning for the garden showcases begins in the spring of the
WARNER TIDWELL
2024 AGS West Garden
previous year, so it takes months of planning and designing and coordinating by our Gardens Chair Todd Breyer, landscape architects and a team of volunteers. Their transformation of the Music City Center is an incredible feat each year and a highlight of the Show! How did the 2025 co-chairs select the signature fabric patterns that inspired the theme for the show? How do they represent current (or classic) design themes or trends? Dawn: We love designs with layers upon layers of beautiful fabrics that create a feeling of coziness. We will never be minimalists, although we so appreciate and admire people who can be. We are both also drawn to beautiful gardens and are always looking for fun ways to bring the gardens indoors, whether it’s through flowers, plants or even a landscape painting. Paige: The patterns we selected from our partners Fabricut, Jean Monro and Clarence House are reflective of those design themes of creating warm and welcoming spaces through layering. The patterns also evoke
the English countryside and show how we can bring the outdoors in through fabrics and wallpaper. Cheekwood benefits from the show’s proceeds. Please describe its importance to Nashville. Nashville has experienced explosive growth in the past few years. How has that impacted ECON charities and how does the show address that? Dawn: We’re especially honored to serve the Nashville community in our role to help raise proceeds for the Show’s two original beneficiaries, Cheekwood and ECON Charities! We’re proud to say the Show has raised $11 million to date for these deserving charities. Paige: Cheekwood, a preserved country estate, provides the opportunity for thousands of visitors a year to experience wonderful horticultural and educational programs and events. ECON Charities partners with and distributes funds to two organizations, The Family Center and Light a Spark, which are dedicated to enhancing and improving the lives of children and families in the greater Nashville area. DM DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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INDIANOLA
DELTA DETOURS
Just around the corner of the B.B. King Museum, lies Club Ebony. Club Ebony opened in 1948 and was a popular spot during the “Chitlin Circuit.” Its talent roster included James Brown, Ike Turner, Syl Johnson, Clarence Cater, Denise LaSalle, Bobby Rush, Howlin’ Wolf, Tyrone Davis, and many more. Original owner, John Jones, dubbed it as “the south’s largest and 昀nest nightclub.” To preserve a piece of history, B.B. King donated the club to the museum in 2012.
Club Ebony B.B. King Museum Indianola, Mississippi, was the place world-renowned icon, B.B. King called home. The B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center not only tells about the life of the King of the Blues, it includes interesting and fascinating facts about Mississippi history, Delta history, blues history and civil rights history. Since opening in 2008, the museum has been a true “must see” for avid blues travelers and locals, alike.
Downtown Indianola is a charming place to walk the streets along Indian Bayou, shopping for clothing, shoes, gifts, gourmet foods, pottery, art, books and 昀owers while experiencing true Southern hospitality and personal service. Don’t forget to take a drive down Highway 82 and enjoy all of the shopping it has to offer!
Shopping
Places to Eat With hometown feel and big-city variety, Indianola is the Delta’s best destination for award-winning dining. The Crown has been a popular lunch destination for nearly 40 years, Nola features 昀ne dining at dinner in our former circa 1940 movie theatre downtown. The Blue Biscuit offers casual dining in a fun, funky atmostphere (lunch and dinner) in a 1940s car dealership across from the B.B. King Museum. Lost Pizza Company, the 昀agship of the growing franchise, serves upscale, custom pizza (dinner). Betty’s Place (lunch) is housed in a refurbished gas station. Find a plate lunch and steaks at Sookie’s Catering (lunch and dinner). Hungry? Indianola’s got ya covered!
INDIANOLACHAMBERMS.COM • 662.887.4454
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GREENVILLE WASHINGTON COUNTY
DELTA DETOURS
True Blues
Steaks at Doe’s Eat Place Around 1941, a partial recipe for hot tamales was given to Dominick “Doe” Signa and his wife, Mamie, which marked the beginning of Doe’s Eat Place. Once its storefront was a honky-tonk, but they’ve been serving up fabulous steaks, grilled shrimp and specialty salads, along with unmatched hospitality for decades now. In 2007, it was honored by the James Beard Foundation, with the America’s Classic Award.
In the heyday of the blues, over 150 bluesmen lived within a 100mile radius of here. The Highway 61 Blues Museum chronicles the story of the Delta Blues and the musicians who helped make it famous and features memorabilia from B.B. King, James “Son” Thomas, Eddie Cusic, and many others. GreenvilleWashington County is also home to eleven sites on the Mississippi Blues Trail. See live blues music at Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival, the longest running blues festival in America. msbluestrail.org
502 Nelson Street • Greenville, MS • 662-334-3315
Long before a certain pig karatechopped her way into our hearts, Muppet creator Jim Henson was born in Greenville and played on the banks of Deer Creek in Stoneville, just west of Leland. It was here that Henson created the character of that very famous frog. A visit to Henson’s birthplace is 昀lled with the fun and creativity that produced some of the world’s favorite Muppet characters.
The Birthplace of Kermit the Frog Welcome to the Hot and Soul of the Delta. We’re home to the best hot tamales in the nation, as documented by the Southern Foodways Alliance in their Mississippi Delta Hot Tamale Trail. Greenville has been proclaimed as the “Hot Tamale Capital of the World.” The annual Delta Hot Tamale Festival is a fun-昀lled three-day event that celebrates local and regional artists, musicians, and tamale makers as well as some of the South’s most in昀uential chefs and writers. 504 Central Street • Greenville, MS 662-378-3121 mainstreetgreenville.com
415 South Deer Creek Drive E Leland, MS • 662-686-7383 lelandchamber.com/kermit-the-frog
If you’re a guy and just want to get away with your buds, we’ve got the answer. Fishing, hunting, dining, nightlife, Delta Blues, festivals, 昀yways, the Delta Mancation has it all. Come see why our area was named one of the top 200 places to live for sportsmen. Trails abound in Leroy Percy State Park and the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge. These wetlands projects offer great hunting, 昀shing, birding, wildlife viewing and hiking. Lake Ferguson and Lake Lee combine to offer more than 6,000 acres of choice largemouth bass, crappie, cat昀sh and bluegill 昀shing.
Take a Man-cation Hot Tamale Capital of the World
VISITGREENVILLE.ORG 1-800-487-3582
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VICKSBURG
DELTA DETOURS
There are plenty of indoor attractions in historic Vicksburg, but what about those sun-drenched days best spent outside? If you’re looking to soak in some fresh air throughout your Vicksburg adventures, you’re in luck! The region offers a host of parks and other outdoor recreation areas that are perfect for cycling, canoeing, 昀shing, bird watching and casual tourism.
Explore
Stay No Vicksburg visit is complete without comfortable accommodations, which can be found at plenty of local hotels, bed & breakfast inns, and lodges. Options range from luxurious riverfront suites to affordable guestrooms. Come stay awhile and be our guest!
Tour
Tourists and history buffs can explore museums and tours homes that dive into the history of our great city. From the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum’s displays of the beloved soft drink to the most haunted house in Mississippi, McRaven Tour Home, Vicksburg has something for every type of traveler.
Dining, tour, and shopping opportunities await you in Downtown Vicksburg. From eclectic boutiques, art galleries, and museums, Downtown Vicksburg has it! While you are shopping and exploring, make sure to grab a bite to eat at a locally owned restaurant. Or grab a cocktail and walk around this charming area. There’s something for everyone in historic Downtown Vicksburg.
Downtown
Dine
Even a brief exploration of Vicksburg will reveal a seemingly endless range of delectable eateries offering cuisine from around the world. Whether you’re hoping to sit down and savor an upscale meal or enjoy a local brew, there’s something in Vicksburg that will strike your fancy. Vicksburg is loaded with locally owned restaurants and worldrenowned chain restaurants alike. You won’t leave hungry!
WWW.VISITVICKSBURG.COM
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COLUMBUS
DELTA DETOURS
Columbus Spring Pilgrimage Columbus Spring Pilgrimage is April 1 -13. Come and experience exceptional historic home tours in an idyllic setting. Tales from the Crypt, a candle-lit dramatic tour through historic Friendship Cemetery performed by students from Mississippi School for Math and Science, is April 2, 4, 9, 11.
The popular Cat昀sh in the Alley returns April 11-12. Held in historic Cat昀sh Alley, this two-day festival features food vendors, artisans, and the best blues musicians around. This year’s headliner is D.K. Harrell.
Catfish in the Alley
Outdoor Adventures Take a run on the Riverwalk or a stroll in one of three historic districts. Enjoy leisure kayaking or competitive 昀shing along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. Play baseball or softball in the newly opened Lowndes County Sportsplex.
Columbus is home to a vibrant downtown bustling with boutiques, galleries, and restaurants. Visitors can also explore historic Friendship Cemetery and The W campus.
Dining and Shopping
Tennessee Williams Welcome Center Columbus is the birthplace of America’s most proli昀c playwright Tennessee Williams. Williams’ childhood home located at 300 Main Street is open for tours Tuesday through Saturday and serves as the city’s welcome center.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.VISITCOLUMBUSMS.ORG. #CATCHYOUINCOLUMBUS DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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TUPELO
DELTA DETOURS
Live Music Scene Home to 17 unique live music venues, feel the beat almost every day of the week in Tupelo. Visit tupelo.net/events to check out all of the city’s live music events.
Explore the home where Elvis Presley was born, a museum that chronicles his life, and the original church where he was in昀uenced by gospel music.
Elvis
Food & Dining Tupelo is home to over 200 restaurants with a little something for everyone. Visit tupelo.net/food-drink to see all of the scrumptious options. Follow #tupelofoodie on Instagram and let your mouth water.
With three distinct shopping districts, Tupelo is a true shopper’s paradise. Visit Downtown, Midtown, and the Barnes Crossing District and shop ‘til’ you drop.
Shopping Districts
Natchez Trace Parkway One of America’s top ten national parks, the Natchez Trace Parkway is headquartered in Tupelo and includes a visitor center with interactive exhibits about this historic byway.
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NATCHEZ
DELTA DETOURS
Natchez Trails: Museum of the Streets. Explore miles of architectural treasures and interesting history about this fascinating town. Natchez is also home to several markers on the Mississippi Blues Trail and the Mississippi Mound Trail. Visit Natchez - 601-492-3000 www.visitnatchez.org/business/natchez-trails-and-walking-tour
Grand Village of the Natchez Indians Longwood Built in 1861, Longwood is the largest octagonal house in the South and one of Natchez’s most iconic historic museum homes. 140 Lower Woodville Rd. 601-442-5193 https://visitnatchez.org/listing/longwood/
Ancient stories live on at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians. Explore the original Natchez at this important mound site through interpretive signs and virtual experiences. 400 Jeff Davis Blvd, Natchez 601-446-6502 https://visitnatchez.org/listing/grand-village-of-thenatchez-indians/
This lively converted juke joint is one of the best places to 昀nd live music in Natchez! 319 N Broadway St., Natchez. https://visitnatchez.org/listing/smoots-grocery/
Smoot’s Grocery Under the Hill District Home to one of the oldest bars on the Mississippi River, Under the Hill offers some of the best food and views Natchez has to offer. More information at Visitnatchez.org 601-492-3000 or 1-800-647-6724
601.492.3000 • WWW.VISITNATCHEZ.ORG
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HARDIN COUNTY, TENNESSEE
DELTA DETOURS
The Lodge at Pickwick Landing State Park Fully remodeled lodge with 119 rooms each with a picturesque view of the lake. Outdoor and indoor pools for all guests. The Lodge has a restaurant, lounge, gift shop, laundry facilities, and exercise rooms. The Lodge offers 6,000 square feet of 昀exible event space to accommodate conferences, weddings, and group events.
Pickwick Landing State Park Golf Course
120 Playground Loop, Counce, TN 38326 www.tnstateparks.com/lodges/pickwick-landing
Featuring Champion Bermuda greens and 419 Bermuda fairways, this course is almost always in championship condition and playable year-round. Driving range, practice green, on-site lodging, snack bar/grill, and club rental. Lessons are available. 60 Win昀eld Dunn Lane, Pickwick Dam, TN 38365 www.tnstateparks.com/golf/ course/pickwick-landing
Pickwick Landing Landing State Park Cabins Pickwick cabins lie on the shores of Pickwick Lake near the Tennessee River. Seven premium cabins offer 昀rst-class comfort and modern conveniences. Guests can enjoy views of the lake while relaxing in the living room or out on the patio . Each cabin has WiFi, a gas grill, patio table and chairs, cable TV, central heat and air, and a gas 昀replace. The park also offers 10 standard cabins located in a secluded woodsy setting. 116 State Park Lane, Pickwick Dam, TN 38365 www.tnstateparks.com/parks/cabins/pickwick-landing
Located at mile marker Pickwick Landing 208, along the south bank State Park Marina of the Tennessee River
near Pickwick Dam . For more than 40 years the marina has served the recreational and tournament 昀shing needs of the community. Kayak, canoes, paddle boards, and pontoon boats are available to rent. All types of boats are allowed at Pickwick Landing. There are two public boat ramps in the park, each of which is available free of charge. 116 State Park Lane, Pickwick Dam, TN 38365 www.tnstateparks.com/parks/marina/pickwick-landing
Camping
Pickwick Landing State Park Campground is a beautiful wooded campground featuring 48 sites, each equipped with a ta-ble, a grill and electrical and water hook-up. Bathhouse and dump station are centrally located. Open year-round. The park also offers a primitive campground located north of Pickwick Lake with 33 primitive sites. 116 State Park Lane, Pickwick Dam, TN 38365 www.tnstateparks.com/parks/campground/pickwick-landing
WWW.TOURHARDINCOUNTY.ORG
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CARROLLTON
VISIT CARROLLTON
DELTA
Step back in time with a visit to Historic Carrollton, Mississippi. Organized in 1834, the Town became a bustling community that prospered until the early 1900s. Once listed as an Endangered Site by the Mississippi Heritage Trust, Carrollton is now thriving in the 21st century. Download the free Walking Tour of Carrollton, MS app from Apple App Store or Google Play.
DETOURS
Pioneer Day Festival Pioneer Day Festival honors the founding of Carroll County in 1833 with this annual arts and crafts festival, as well as educational opportunities. The 2025 Pioneer Day Festival will be held on Saturday, October 4.
The Community House was born out of the Great Depression and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019. “A Taste of Soup” event and Art Exhibit will be held here February 1, 2025. Tickets are available by calling 662-392-4810.
662.392.4810 | VisitCarrolltonMs.com
For information about renting for an event, call Carrollton Town Hall at 662-237-4600.
Merrill Museum The Merrill Museum tells the story of Carroll County, from Native American days to the present. Exhibits include antique bottles, arrowheads, Joy’s Toys, and family items from the John S. McCain family, and author Elizabeth Spencer. It is open during the annual Pilgrimage and for group tours by appointment.
The Carrollton Community House
Call 662-237-6910 for group tour info.
VISITCARROLLTONMS.COM
Pilgrimage Tour of Historic Churches Historic churches in Carrollton date from as early as the 1800s. A selection of historic churches will be open for tours during the annual Pilgrimage. The 2025 Pilgrimage Church Tours will be held October 3 - 4. Group tours can be scheduled by appointment. VisitCarrolltonMS.com or 662-392-4810 email: CarrolltonMsTours@gmail.com
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RIDGELAND
DELTA DETOURS
Premier Shopping Ridgeland is a shopper’s paradise, offering everything from upscale fashion to unique antiques. Explore the high-end Renaissance at Colony Park and The Township for luxury shopping and dining or visit the charming Railroad District for one-of-a-kind antiques and art. Northpark provides diverse indoor shopping, while the Waller Craft Center features locally crafted treasures. The Ridgeland Retail Trail is a must for discovering hidden gems. Whether you’re seeking the latest trends or handcrafted pieces, Ridgeland’s retail scene is irresistible!
Explore the Great Outdoors Ridgeland is the perfect destination for outdoor adventure. With miles of scenic trails along the historic Natchez Trace Parkway, it’s a cyclist’s paradise, offering everything from mountain biking to the annual Natchez Trace Century Ride. The Explore Ridgeland Bikeshare Program makes biking easy for visitors. Water enthusiasts will love “The Rez” (Barnett Reservoir), with over 33,000 acres of water for boating, kayaking, and 昀shing. Ridgeland also offers family-friendly parks, pet-friendly paths, and endless opportunities to explore nature.
Topgolf Topgolf Ridgeland is Mississippi’s premier entertainment destination, offering fun for golfers and non-golfers alike. Enjoy year-round comfort in 60 all-weather hitting bays, each with HDTVs and climate control. Take on interactive Toptracer games or aim at giant out昀eld targets, with high-tech balls automatically tracking your score. The venue also features a full-service bar and restaurant, private event spaces, golf lessons, and a 9-hole mini golf course—perfect for a fun outing, party, or corporate event.
Events
Ridgeland is a year-round hub for exciting events that cater to every interest. Spring brings vibrant celebrations like The Township Jazz Festival, Santé South Wine & Food Festival, the Dragon Boat Regatta, and Pepsi Pops with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra. Summer heats up with Snappy Sync Soiree & Fire昀y Tours and the dazzling Celebrate America Balloon Glow. Fall features the Sanderson Farms PGA Championship and the Euro Fest Classic European Auto & Motorcycle Show. Winter wraps up with the Chimneyville Arts Festival and Wrap It in Ridgeland. With something for everyone, Ridgeland is the place to be! Learn more at exploreRidgeland.com.
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Steakhouse Capital of Mississippi Ridgeland’s culinary scene is a 昀avorful journey, earning it the title of “Steakhouse Capital of Mississippi.” Enjoy perfectly cooked steaks at Koestler Prime or Tico’s Steakhouse, or savor Southern-inspired dishes at Local 463 Urban Kitchen. Seafood lovers can indulge in fresh oysters at CAET [seafood | oysterette]. For variety, Anjou offers French bistro charm, while Soulshine Pizza serves up delicious pies in a relaxed setting. Unique spots like Dogmud Tavern combine food with fun. Ridgeland also embraces healthy dining, with vegan and farm-to-table options, making it a food lover’s dream!
www.exploreRidgeland.com 800-468-6078
ABERDEEN
DELTA DETOURS
Explore Historic Homes and Architecture Aberdeen is renowned for its stunning antebellum and Victorian homes. Experience the grandeur during the annual Pilgrimage Tour of Homes, where you can step inside private residences and historic landmarks to learn about their rich history. If you’re visiting outside of Pilgrimage season, take the self-guided Architectural Driving Tour, which highlights the area’s most iconic structures with detailed insights into their design and historical signi昀cance.
Stroll and Shop Through Aberdeen Main Street Downtown Aberdeen’s Main Street offers a delightful blend of activity and charm. Take a leisurely walk to enjoy its unique shops, featuring everything from vintage treasures and handcrafted goods to locally-made products. Along the way, admire the welcoming storefronts, colorful murals, and the vibrant atmosphere that captures the essence of a small-town. It’s the perfect place to 昀nd one-of-a-kind items and soak in the local culture.
Enjoy a Meal at a Local Eatery Sample Southern hospitality and cuisine at one of the locally-owned cafes or restaurants. Whether you’re craving comfort food or a quick bite, downtown Aberdeen offers 昀avorful options to satisfy your taste buds.
Relax by the Tenn-Tom Waterway Take a short stroll along the scenic Tenn-Tom Waterway. Enjoy the tranquil views, a peaceful picnic, or just relax in the fresh air near this picturesque natural feature.
Celebrate Aberdeen’s Annual Events Aberdeen comes alive throughout the year with exciting annual events that showcase its community spirit and Southern charm. Experience the vibrant Mardi Gras Parade, complete with colorful 昀oats and lively music. In the spring, the Pilgrimage Tour of Homes offers an exclusive look inside historic residences and landmarks, paired with cultural activities and local hospitality. During the holiday season, Aberdeen transforms into a winter wonderland with festive Christmas events, including parades, tree lightings, and community celebrations that bring holiday cheer to all ages.
www.aberdeenms.org
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YAZOO
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HOME
From Forgotten to
FOREVER
The Stunning Transformation of a Once-Abandoned Home
BY TERRI GLAZER PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROSS GROUP CREATIVE
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MARK MCCLURE
reenwood native Wade Litton wondered for years about the property he and his family now call home. “This house has always kind of piqued my interest,” he says. Although he loved its riverfront location and the beauty of its architecture, he never imagined he, his wife Meagan, and their three children would live in the classic Georgian-style residence.
G
The Littons’ previous home was maxed out. “We loved our house but our family was growing and we were bursting at the seams a little, so we were trying to find our forever home,” Wade recalls. Working with Memphis-based architect Mark McClure, the couple considered adding on or building a new home. “Then in 2019 this came up. We brought Mark here and he thought it was something he could work with, so we went all in on making the most out of the house,” says Wade. It’s reasonable to assume that a renovation of a 50-year-old place would be a big undertaking, however this project had a very unique set of challenges. The house had been unoccupied for over a decade and had sustained major damage as a result. In addition to reworking the layout and adding space to meet the Littons’ needs, McClure had to address damage from years of water and animals in the house. The entire structure had to be replumbed and rewired, the ruined floors had to be replaced, and the site required extensive landscape work. Says McClure, “Having this house on adequate acreage and overlooking farmers’ fields, it was a wonderful setting. There was enough square footage and land to accommodate [the 106 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
The home had been unoccupied for thirteen years before the Littons renovated it.
couple’s] program. It was in bad shape, but it could all be rectified. We basically took it down to the studs. We had to remove all the finishes, which gave us an opportunity to really modify the existing house to suit their needs.” McClure wanted the renovation to remain respectful of the original home. “We had good bones to work with,” he says, pointing out its characteristic elements of Georgian architecture including one- and two-story sections, symmetrical front composition, and a hipped roof. The style has been popular in the South since colonial times. A few “must-haves” were on the Littons’ list for their home, among them an office for Wade, a playroom for their three children, and a pool. Landscape architect Marley Fields joined the team and reimagined the grounds to accommodate a pool, a poolhouse, a new garage and more. As the design process progressed the Littons began to feel a bit overwhelmed with all the choices that accompanied such a largescale renovation. Taking the recommendation of friends in Hattiesburg, they brought New Orleans interior designer Chad Graci on board. He recalls, “Everything Meagan showed me for
Architect Mark McClure gave the living room a stately coffered ceiling to create the illusion of height. The home’s original design prevented raising most of the first-floor ceilings.
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Designer Chad Graci kept the color palette simple in the kitchen, allowing dark wood and marble to show off their natural beauty.
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“We looked at different versions of industrial pendant lights before we decided to go with the white ones. I feel like they were perfect for a crisp, classic-looking kitchen,” says designer Chad Graci.
inspiration was very light and bright and simple. Really transitional—not too traditional, not too modern. I think she wanted a clean look, but I felt that the pieces needed to speak to the traditional architecture of the house, so that’s where we started.” Contractor Damian Scott of KT Builders in Greenwood rounded out the team, and after two and a half years of construction, the Litton family moved into their “forever” house in the summer of 2023. The newly painted exterior allows the house to stand out amid the grove of trees that graces the front yard. Off to one side, the garage designed by McClure is right at home: he fashioned it to resemble a stable from a Revolutionary-era Georgian residence. “I wanted it to look like it had always been there,” he says. While the project was ongoing McClure found a weather vane embellished with a tractor. He knew it would be the perfect topper for the garage’s cupola, as it is a nod to the homeowners’ family business. Immediately inside the new front door, the entryway sets a gracious tone. Oak flooring in a lovely herringbone pattern and a Chippendale-style railing on the staircase create an angular theme. To the left, the living room’s color palette is fresh and crisp, with enough of a tint to add interest while allowing the furnishings to take center stage. A classic grand piano, one of only a few salvageable items in the home when the Littons became its owners, provides a dramatic touch and a nod to the house’s history. The furnishings here and throughout are a blend of newly sourced additions, a handful of other refurbished pieces from the previous owner, the Littons’ existing items, and some family heirlooms, including a bed that once belonged to Wade’s grandmother. The bed was crafted by the late Mario Villa, a well-known artist and furniture maker from New Orleans. Across the entryway is the dining room, where updated sophistication and tradition again go hand-in-hand. The subtle
metallic grasscloth Graci selected for the walls gives the space a decidedly dressy flair. A time-honored standard, the Duncan Phyffe pedestal table sits surrounded by cerused wood French side chairs upholstered in smoky velvet and clean-lined Parsons chairs upholstered in a geometric mini print. The juxtaposition of shapes and styles works to create a space with an air of formality, minus any hint of fussiness. This is not your grandmother’s dining room. The mood is more family casual in the adjoining keeping room, making it a favorite spot for the Littons to gather for a weeknight meal, to watch TV or play games. Constructing the room was no easy task, as its brick fireplace had to be moved for the renovation. The wall on which it is placed was originally the exterior wall of the house. This wing of the home and a matching one on the DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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opposite side were added in an expansion only two years after the original Georgian box-style structure was built. A pair of cozy club chairs by the fireplace offer front-row TV viewing. Across the room there’s a spot for all five Littons to gather around a white tulip table, thanks to the comfortable bamboo dining chairs and a corner banquette covered in snazzy white textured vinyl. Graci calls the vignette “an unexpected twist” in the home’s overall decor. Remodeling an existing home comes with limitations, some of which must be worked around. One of those is ceiling height. In most of the first floor, the ceilings could not be raised, but McClure’s plan afforded space in the keeping room. The Littons capitalized on that architectural feature, adding a tongue-andgroove tray ceiling in natural wood. 110 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
The room opens into the kitchen. As it was part of the new addition, McClure had free rein to draw the eye up here. He achieved that goal beautifully with a vaulted ceiling accented with an oversize fretwork of wood beams. Graci’s design choices emphasize natural elements—the wood of the beams and island, and the white rhino marble countertops and backsplash. White inset perimeter cabinets provide all the storage a growing family needs and a full-height wine cooler just for the grown-ups. The specialty refrigerator is one of the kitchen’s full line of Viking appliances. “We have to support our hometown business!” says Wade of the Greenwood-based manufacturer. Also part of the home’s newly expanded rear section, the family room floods with light. Graci left the wall of iron doors and full-
A large family room was on the Littons’ “must-have” list for their renovated home. A series of iron french doors across the back wall provides views of the picturesque landscape and allows for easy indoor/outdoor flow when the couple entertains.
length windows uncovered to maximize views of the beautiful live oak tree just outside the room, as well as the peaceful farmland beyond. The room is home to one of seven fireplaces scattered throughout the house. “Lots of fireplaces” was one of Meagan’s original requests for the revamped abode. The family room, full of light neutral upholstered furniture, shows no sign of the three active Litton children who spend time there daily, usually accompanied by friends. Says Graci, “We used a lot of performance fabrics, and whatever was not a performance fabric, we had knit backed and stain treated before it went onto the piece of furniture. Even the fabulous pair of deep plum bergere chairs we ended up with in the living room. They’re sort of a defining moment for that room. But that too is a performance fabric.” DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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A newly added bay window and graceful tray ceiling add to the primary bedroom’s generous scale. McClure was able to start from scratch on the adjoining bathroom, giving the homeowners an elegant, spa-like retreat.
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With built-in bunks and a comfy area to watch TV or play games, the upstairs playroom is ideal for sleepover fun. The wallpaper, an homage to a large world map that hung in Wade’s childhood home, allowed the family to trace the itinerary of relatives who recently took a world cruise.
Wallpaper and fabric designs by Delta artist Haley Farris helped create a room the Littons’ daughter will continue to love as she grows. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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The spacious screened-in porch is perfect for outdoor cooking, dining, and relaxing. Just outside the classic screened door is the new pool, expertly designed and sited by landscape architect Marley Fields.
If there’s any place in the house where making the furnishings kid friendly was not topmost on the list, Wade’s office is it. Conceived as a spot for the man of the house to work or unwind, the space is handsome and masculine. Heart pine paneling covers the walls, exuding the air of an English hunting lodge. Tucked away in a corner, a wet bar area is an ideal addition to the space. Graci covered its walls, trim and cabinets in the same high-gloss hue, punched up by black and brass in the flooring, countertop, light fixture, sink, and faucet. The spot is easily accessible when the family is entertaining outdoors via an iron door in the same style as those in the family room. Down the hall, the primary bedroom is home to another of the handful of remnants from the original house. The fireplace mantel was usable and the Littons liked its existing soft teal paint color, so it stayed in place and became the jumping off point for the room’s design. That pop of color catches the eye in the light and airy space, along with the new bay window. Graci admits that the room’s beaded wood chandelier is one of his favorites out of the many light fixtures he selected for the home. “We found it at an antique shop that was closing on Magazine Street. I texted Meagan a picture of it and said, ‘This is the only room this can go in because it has the tray ceiling. You’ve got to get the chandelier!’” Elegance is the ambiance in the new primary bath. With a base of marble tile flooring in a modern iteration of the classic hex pattern, the design is straightforward and traditional, yet up to date. When asked about his favorite part of the house, Wade says it’s 114 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
MARK MCCLURE
Complete with a kitchen, bedroom, and bath, the poolhouse serves a multitude of purposes. It can accommodate overnight guests comfortably, facilitate outdoor entertaining, or give backyard swimmers a place to take a break.
a toss-up between his office and the new covered patio and screen porch. “When the weather’s right we use this as another family room,” he says. Thanks to built-in heaters and a large fireplace, even a Delta winter day might be considered “right” weather for the family to relax while Dad cooks on the outdoor appliances, then enjoy a meal in the dining area right beside. The couple credits Fields’ vision for the placement of the pool and poolhouse. The landscape architect positioned both off to the right side of the back yard, allowing the beloved live oak to stay in place just outside the den. The charming poolhouse not only provides extra room for overnight company, it facilitates outdoor entertaining. The party can flow from the house onto the back porch, into the yard and over to the poolhouse, where the kitchen
and extra restroom are indispensable. Though smaller in scale, the poolhouse’s decor packs a big punch from its centerpiece, a large mounted sailfish. A unique memento of a spur-of-the-moment fishing day during a family vacation to Costa Rica, the bright blue trophy is part heirloom, part conversation piece. Graci allowed it to be the star, keeping the other furnishings neutral and textured, and of course, indoor/outdoor friendly. “Down to the rug,” says Graci, “which you can literally take outside and hose off.” Having gone from forgotten to showplace, this home’s new life is remarkable, driven by an owner with a persistent interest in it and brought to fruition by a team of talented professionals. It is a testament to the fact that even a seemingly unsalvageable property can have its potential unlocked to become beautiful, practical and beloved. DM DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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FOOD
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Legacy
of FLAVOR
Taylor Bowen-Ricketts Brings the Rich Traditions of Cajun Cuisine to Fan and Johnny’s RECIPES BY TAYLOR BOWEN-RICKETTS • PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROSS GROUP CREATIVE
he ever-changing daily menu at Fan and Johnny’s in downtown Greenwood is just one of the many reasons Taylor Bowen-Ricketts’ beloved restaurant is not only a local favorite but has become a dining destination for the entire region. The vintage tables and art-filled walls, many of them Ricketts’ own works, create an eclectic, inviting space to welcome diners, but the food is what keeps people coming back.
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Taylor Bowen-Ricketts, chef and owner of Fan and Johnny’s in downtown Greenwood.
Growing up in Jackson, Ricketts spent many weekends in Hammond, Louisiana, with her maternal grandparents—Fan and Johnny. She describes meal times in their homes as “more like festivals,” and the Cajun-inspired flavors left an indelible mark. And so her love of good food, cooking, and Cajun seasonings was born and was heavily influenced by her grandparents. To this day, Bowen-Ricketts still uses tips she picked up from her childhood Louisiana trips. She notes that many of the flavors they introduced her to are traditional flavors of the Mississippi Delta, which is evident in her vibrant menu offerings. The Greenwood restaurant scene has taken somewhat of a hit these past couple of years with the loss of Lusco’s and Crystal Grill, both beloved eateries in the historic town, making patrons even more grateful for the culinary prowess Bowen-Ricketts brings to each dish as well as her commitment to her establishment and the community. Having been named a James Beard Best Chef South semifinalist, Bowen-Ricketts strives daily to elevate the Southern classics she offers, and it’s no surprise that many dishes include a Louisiana twist. Here, she shares some of her favorite Cajun-inspired recipes, perfect for the home cook and just in time for Mardi Gras season! – CINDY COOPWOOD 120 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
CREOLE WHITE BEAN SOUP WITH CAJUN CORNBREAD CROUTONS 1 stick butter 1 onion, diced 4 stalks celery, diced 1 carrot, diced 2 tablespoons garlic, minced 2 tablespoons Cajun seasoning, recipe below 1 teaspoon thyme 1 teaspoon basil 2 cups andouille sausage, diced 5 cups navy beans (prepared from dried, or canned) 2 cups chicken broth 1 cup heavy cream Salt to taste
In a large Dutch oven, melt butter and saute onions, celery, carrots and diced sausage until softened, adding garlic during the last minute or two so as not to burn. Add all seasonings and mix well. Add navy beans, then pour in chicken broth and cream and allow to simmer 45 minutes to an hour to combine flavors and thicken. As it cooks add more broth if needed. Serve piping hot, topped with Cajun cornbread croutons and a sprinkle of chopped scallions.
Crispy cornbread croutons are the perfect finishing touch for Creole White Bean Soup.
CAJUN CORNBREAD CROUTONS Use your favorite cornbread recipe for these. 2 cups cornbread, cubed ½ cup butter, melted 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning ½ cup scallions, sliced small
Toss cornbread in melted butter, Cajun spice, and scallions, then toast on low until hardened.
CAJUN SEASONING If you love Cajun flavors, keep this on hand for soups, seafood, and your other favorite dishes. 3 cups paprika ½ cup salt 1 cup garlic powder ½ cup basil ¼ cup thyme
½ cup parsley ½ cup cayenne ¼ cup red pepper flakes ¼ cup oregano
Mix all together and store in an airtight container. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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PICKLED SHRIMP 2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined 4 cups water 1 lemon, halved 2 tablespoons Cajun spice 1 cup scallions, diced ½ cup pimento
Bring water to a boil. Add shrimp, lemon, and Cajun spice. Once shrimp are cooked (don’t overcook!), toss them with Dijon vinaigrette, scallions, and pimento. Chill for 24 hours. Delicious served over a bed of shredded cabbage.
DIJON VINAIGRETTE Perfect for salads or as a marinade, this recipe makes a large amount, so there will be plenty to store and keep for other uses. 15 cloves garlic, minced ½ cup Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons salt 1 cup apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon parsley 3 cups olive oil
To make the vinaigrette, simply puree garlic, Dijon mustard, salt, apple cider vinegar, and parsley in a food processor. Slowly add oil while machine is running.
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Cajun Stuffed Duck Breast, here served over au gratin peas, but would also be delicious over mashed potatoes.
CAJUN STUFFED DUCK BREAST This could be used as a dressing if you’d like to add turkey, roast chicken, or even oysters to the mixture. And if you don’t have access to duck breasts, Cornish hens are also a great substitute! ½ cup butter ½ red onion 1 poblano pepper ½ bunch celery 1 tablespoon garlic 1 cup finely chopped andouille sausage 1 cooked chicken breast, pulled 1 tablespoon Cajun spice 3 cups crumbled cornbread 1 cup breadcrumbs 2 cups broth Salt and pepper to taste
Sauté all vegetables in butter allow to cool. Blend vegetables with all remaining ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Set aside. With a sharp knife, slice each duck breast half at its thickest part to create a pocket the entire length of breast, being sure not to slice through the other side. Use your fingers to push stuffing into each duck breast, filling pocket as much as possible. Sprinkle breasts with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add duck breasts (if there is skin, place skin-side down) and cook until nicely browned, about 4 minutes per side. Cover skillet and allow to cook to desired doneness, approximately 5 minutes for medium-rare, and being sure not to overcook. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS BETH’S BLESSINGS • Paxton, Baker & England Families • Bayer Crop Science • Jill P. Flowers • South Delta Planning & Development Dist. • TROP Casino Greenville • Wade Incorporated LEGACY OF HOPE • Margaret H. Walker • Alliance Cancer Center • Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company • James Ceranti Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Nissan • Dean & Gwin Cumbaa • Delta Area Crop Insurance • Delta Group • The Medical Center • Dowdy Dental Clinic • Dr. Jeffery Doolittle • Gresham Petroleum Co. • GT&T Farms • Harlow’s Casino • Dr. Maroun Hayek/Greenville HemOnc • Joe Tonos Jewelers • McDonald’s • Mississippi Marine Corporation • Planters Bank and Trust Co. • Dr. Theresa L. Skelton - TLS Smiles • South Ridge Storage • Kim and Gary Taylor • The Heritage Club of Lake Village CIRCLE OF PROMISE • A&A Home Health Equipment, Inc. • Agricultural Asset Services • Susan & David Allen • Avritt Medical Equipment • Bolivar Medical Center • W L Burle Engineers P.A. • Cabin on the Bogue/Showcase on Wheels • Canon Motor Company • Chillie’s Package Store • Coping Center, Inc. • Crossley Axminster, Inc. • Cypress Hills Tennis Club, Inc.
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Stuckey Family Dentistry is proud to serve Greenwood and the Delta for 30 Years in family dental services. Beautiful results and a healthy mouth are a few appointments plan for a healthy mouth together. Call us today!
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HISTORY
The Harpe Brothers, “Big Harpe” and “Little Harpe.” The Harpes are known as the earliest documented serial killers in United States history. The Harpes’ criminal activities occured primarily along the Natchez Trace.
Pirates of the Mississippi River Back in the 18th and 19th Centuries, floating down the Mississippi was not to be taken lightly BY WADE S. WINEMAN, JR.
any Mississippians seem to doubt that real pirates ever existed in the state, regarding them instead as mythological characters. But ahoy, me hearties, all hands on deck! You’ll be in shipshape after reading this story.
M
Southern piracy has been extensively researched, particularly the exploits of Mason, Murrell, and the Harpe brothers: “Big Harpe” 136 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
and “Little Harpe.” These desperadoes spent portions of their careers in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century Mississippi. The Harpes have been described as the earliest documented serial killers in United States history, thought to have killed and butchered between forty and fifty people of all ages, including babies, and raped many victims, as well. Like most outlaws of the era, they believed that “dead men tell no tales.” The two were known for their signature
Map showing Point Chicot and Island 83 (Sutton’s Island) across from Greenville.
method of body disposal: slicing open victims’ chests, filling them with stones, and sinking the corpses in streams. The Harpes’ criminal activities occurred primarily along the Natchez Trace. Mason operated there also, but earlier in his career, he had been active on the Ohio River and along the Mississippi in Missouri. Murrell, however, was one of the worst pirates on the lower Mississippi River. By 1804, the Harpes had passed from the scene. Their deeds became so offensive they were eventually caught and killed. One brother was shot and beheaded by a civilian posse. The other escaped, only to be captured, tried, and hanged a few years later. Following his hanging, his head was severed and mounted on a pole on the Trace as a warning to other highwaymen. Following the deaths of the Harpe brothers, the steamboat became the dominant mode of travel, and bandits soon learned it was more profitable to prey on produce-laden riverboats than to ambush travelers on the Natchez Trace. The popularity of Mississippi River travel between the Ohio River and New Orleans was shown by an 1811 report on river activity spanning seven months in 1810 and 1811. The report revealed that 847 vessels had traveled the Mississippi, most being flatboats. These vessels carried such staples as flour, bacon, whiskey, livestock, grains, and fruits, all of which could be stolen and converted to cash. As boat traffic grew, sparsely settled areas along the river became havens for miscreants. Tributaries afforded quick escape into junglelike stands of switch cane, making arrest difficult, if not impossible. Accordingly, all types of villains began infesting river country. Early in the 1800s, a few innocent newcomers also began settling along the river in the Delta. For many, the only source of cash was
Map showing locations of Stack Island (The Crow's Nest), Bunches Bend, and Lake Providence Reach, otherwise known as Nine Mile Reach of the river. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Cave on the Ohio River near its confluence of the Mississippi. An early hideout for the Harpes and Samuel Mason.
selling cordwood to passing steamers, which at the time were fueled oxbow lake just to the south is still shown on some maps as either exclusively by wood. These honest settlers were forced by Bunch’s Bend or Bunches Bend. circumstance to be polite to pirates cohabiting the area. Floating the Mississippi in the early 1800s was not undertaken During this period, a man known as Captain Bunch lived near lightly. Piracy became so common that the Spanish governor-general Lake Washington and was reputed to be a river pirate. He may have of Louisiana published an order prohibiting river travel by single been the subject of an 1826 letter written in Washington by boats, granting permission only to flotillas strong enough to repel Mississippi Senator Thomas Buck Reed of Natchez, who wrote, bandit attacks. Individual boatmen began uniting against river “There is one lake in the state, Lake Washington, situated in Indian depredation, often administering their own justice. country, the territory around which is A small island near Bunch’s Bend is still beautiful and the soil rich. A man notorious shown on maps today as Stack Island or for crimes has fled from the state of Tennessee Island 94. The island was located in the to this place for refuge, and there are with center of a long, straight stretch of river him upward of fifty persons who have known as Nine Mile Reach and was known escaped the justice of the law and thus located better at the time as the Crow’s Nest. from the jurisdiction of Mississippi or of the The Crow’s Nest was reputed to be the United States. This is a condition of things hangout of an assortment of malefactors, which cannot be endured and requires some including counterfeiters, thieves, and Counterfeiter’s coin mold legislative remedy.” murderers. Here, they could see approaching Bunch had claimed land in the area but vessels for miles in either direction before later sold it to two of its first permanent settlers, Kentuckians Junious pillaging them. The island was supposedly nicknamed for the crow’s Ward and Henry Johnson. The tract was later divided into several nest of a sailing vessel—the upper part of a vessel’s mast, often used separate plantations, the names of which are still known today: The as a lookout point. Burn, Mount Holly, Erwin, and others. Bunch reportedly sold the In 1809, strong southerly winds forced a keelboat flotilla to tie land for fifty dollars in cash and a keg of Kentucky whiskey. up at the head of Nine Mile Reach. While waiting for the winds to Much of Bunch’s river piracy occurred just south of Lake diminish, the boatmen considered their options, aware pirates were Washington and usually consisted of seizing a flatboat, murdering likely present downriver. After midnight on a dark evening, eighty its occupants, and selling its goods. Modern river maps still show crew members, all well-armed, raided Stack Island. In the ensuing an oxbow lake known as Bunch’s Cutoff, an oxbow resulting from battle, two boatmen and several outlaws were killed. Nineteen more a natural change in the river channel in 1830. The lake is located outlaws were captured, all of whom were reported to have been directly across the river from Mayersville, Mississippi. Another old summarily executed. 138 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
The name of nearby Lake Providence, Louisiana, is believed to commissions, but they also eliminated the crime’s sole witness. be related to Stack Island’s pirate activity. If merchant boats could Murrell’s base of operations was never precisely known. Possible pass the island without being attacked, it was commonly believed locations were thought to be either in Tunica County or Stuart to be the result of providence. Island, just west of the river near Lake Chicot, Arkansas. Stuart Botanist Thomas Nuttall mentioned the Stack Island incident Island was better known then as the Robber’s Nest. in his journal. Nuttall stated that a few pirates Murrell’s outfit was believed to be survived the attack and remained active responsible for the robbery of a whiskeyupriver in 1819 near Point Chicot, better loaded raft near Point Chicot. Following the known today as Archer Island and located heist, the bunch anchored in a narrow side directly across Lake Ferguson from chute of the river and began indulging in Greenville’s downtown area. their liquid plunder. Hearing of the deed, Nuttall was later honored when a tree local settlers took matters into their own species was named for him—Quercus hands. Although Murrell was not present at nuttallii—commonly known as the Nuttall the time, his gang was wiped out, and their oak, a native Delta tree found in the boat burned and sunk. The stream remains Mississippi River batture area. today on Chicot County, Arkansas, maps as A gang associated with a counterfeiter Whiskey Chute. known as Clary operated on or near the In 1834, Murrell was turned in to Mississippi between 1810 and 1820, from authorities by one of his accomplices. He was Point Chicot to the mouth of the Arkansas later convicted of his crimes and died ten River near Rosedale. His name also appears years later. in Nuttall’s journal. Samuel Mason was an officer during the Clary’s bunch was likely associated with a Revolutionary War. Because of his physical crime resulting in the naming of a narrow Samuel “Wolfman” Mason appearance, he was known by many as river chute between Greenville and Island 83 “Wolfman” Mason. After the war, he turned (Sutton’s Island), an island later consumed by to crime, forming a group known as the the ravenous Mississippi. The pirate crew Mason Gang. Like the Harpes, Mason had a reportedly used counterfeit money to vicious side. He often left messages following purchase a load of bacon from innocent his attacks—usually in the blood of his flatboat occupants near the little island. victims, stating, “Done by Mason of the Afterward, the chute became known as Bacon Woods.” Chute. Early settlers in Washington County Although the notorious outlaw John believed that Mason had a camp north of Murrell operated occasionally on the Natchez Greenville in the vicinity of the Winterville Trace, he was most active on the Mississippi Mounds. A farmer plowing near the mounds River and had a base there. Indians were said had reportedly unearthed an assortment of to have called Murrell the “white man’s devil.” pewter plates, spoons, and other items, all Until his arrest and imprisonment in 1835, bearing the initial “M.” Locals believed the Murrell was reputed to be allied with a John Murrell items had belonged to Mason. mixed-race network of a thousand Mason eventually became so notorious accomplices, collectively known as the Mystic that William Claiborne, Mississippi territorial Clan. governor, offered a reward of $2,500 for his Mark Twain describes Murrell in Life on capture, dead or alive. The staggering sum the Mississippi as an impostor who pretended resulted in two of Mason’s accomplices killing to be an “itinerant preacher,” even him and bringing in his severed head for the mentioning that his sermons were “soul reward. The two were later discovered to be moving.” But while Murrell’s church pirates and reportedly hanged in Greenville. congregants were enthralled by his so-called Several factors conspired to end river sermons, their horses were being led away by piracy. Following the Civil War, westward Gravesite of John Murrell his accomplices. expansion accelerated, and a rapidly growing One of the Murrell gang’s most lucrative population demanded better law ventures was luring away slaves for resale in other regions. A slave enforcement. A maze of new railroad lines effectively ended the would be promised a share of the scheme’s profits and his eventual declining steamboat industry, a primary source of pirate revenue. release in a free state. The slave would often be sold in this manner By the 1880s—the Golden Era of southern railroad construction— three or four times, accruing substantial future commissions to his the pirates of the Mississippi had long been gone, and with them, a account. The usual result, however, was the naive soul’s murder and colorful, swashbuckling, and bloody era. DM his body dumped in a river. Not only did the gang retain the slave’s DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Dirty Dancing in Concert, February 20
FESTIVALS, MUSIC & FUN THINGS TO DO September 16–April 13
Cleveland
Music America: Iconic Objects From America’s Music History Grammy Museum Mississippi grammymuseumms.org
January 5, 6:30 pm
Memphis
Uncut: Only In a 901 Barbershop
Oxford
Trust Zoo Lights Memphis Zoo memphiszoo.org
The Sipp on South Lamar visitoxfordms.com
Jackson
Roland Freeman and the Camera
January 10–12
Destroy Lonely: Forever Tour Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Jackson
Dinosaurs Around The World: The Great Outdoors Exhibit Mississippi Museum of Natural Science visitjackson.com
January 3
Memphis
Mudshow Growlers songkick.com
January 4, 7 pm
Memphis
Bone Thugs–n–Harmony Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Harlem Globetrotters, January 26 142 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
January 18
Southaven
Landers Center landerscenter.com
January 18, 7 pm
Memphis
Dweezil Zappa: The Rox(postroph)y Tour
January 22, 7 pm
Memphis
Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Jackson
MS Children’s Museum visitjackson.com
Landers Center landerscenter.com
Clay Street Unit
Landers Center landerscenter.com
January 11, 7 pm
December 10–January 5
Southaven
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Journey to the North Pole
Southaven
Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Jackson
Mississippi Museum of Art msmuseumart.org
December 10–January 5
Memphis
Halloran Centre orpheum–memphis.com
Of Salt and Spirit: Black Quilters in the American South
Gold Strike Casino Resort goldstrike.com
Rodeo of the Mid–South
Memphis Songwriter Series: Hannah Blaylock, Rice Dreary & Raneem Imam
Mississippi Museum of Art msmuseumart.org
November 16–April 23
January 9, 7 pm
Tunica
One Night In Memphis
Martin Lawrence: Y’all Know What It Is Tour
Sipp for a Cause: Benefiting Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital
October 26–January 5
January 17
January 17, 8 pm
Halloran Centre orpheum–memphis.com
January 9 November 29–January 4, 5 pm–9 pm Memphis
Ringlong Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus, January 10–12
Memphis
January 23, 7 pm
Steve Treviño: Good Life Tour Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Memphis
Steve Martin & Martin Short, January 25
January 24, 8 pm
Oxford
Shadowgrass The Lyric thelyricoxford.com
January 24–25
Oxford
Oxford Fiber Festival The Powerhouse visitoxfordms.com
January 24–26
Clarksdale
15th Annual Clarksdale Film Festival Various Venues Downtown Clarksdale clarksdalefilmfestival.com
January 25
Memphis
Steve Martin & Martin Short Orpheum Theatre orpheum–memphis.com
January 26, 3 pm
Southaven
Harlem Globetrotters Landers Center landerscenter.com
January 30, 7:30 pm
Oxford
Catalyst Quartet Gertrude Castellow Ford Center for the Performing Arts visitoxfordms.com
January 30
Cleveland
Delta Longbeards, MS Bolivar County Expo Building visitclevelandms.com
January 31, 8 pm
Oxford
Cosmic Charlie The Lyric thelyricoxford.com
February 2
Mary J. Blige and Ne–Yo FedExForum fedexforum.com
February 4, 6:30 pm
Cleveland
Drumline Live Bologna Performing Arts Center bolognapac.com DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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The Simon & Garfunkel Story, February 11
Katt Williams, February 22
February 4–April 10
Cleveland
February 11, 7:30 pm
Oxford
February 20, 7:30 pm
Spring 2025 Series
The Simon & Garfunkel Story
Dirty Dancing in Concert
Bologna Performing Arts Center bolognapac.com
Gertrude Castellow Ford Center for the Performing Arts visitoxfordms.com
Bologna Performing Arts Center visitclevelandms.com
February 6, 7 pm
Memphis
February 21
Gavin Adcock
February 12, 7:30 pm
Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Insidious–The Further You Fear Memphis
February 22, 7:30 am–5 pm
Theory of a Deadman
February 13, 7 pm–9 pm
Graceland graceland.com
Lyceum Series: TAKE3
Starkville
Shreveport, LA
February 22, 7 pm
February GLO FEST
February 13
Riverview Park shreveportcommon.com
Parker McCollum and Kameron Marlowe
February 15, 7 pm
Memphis
PBR: Pendleton Whiskey Velocity Tour FedExForum fedexforum.com
February 18–March 2
Hamilton
Orpheum Theatre orpheum–memphis.com
Orpheum Theatre orpheum–memphis.com
February 7–16
Minglewood Hall minglewoodhallmemphis.com
Memphis
FedExForum fedexforum.com
Oxford Film Festival Various Venues ox–film.com
Jackson
Dixie National Rodeo 2025 MS Coliseum visitjackson.com
February 8, 7:30 pm
Oxford
BritBeat–The Immersive Beatles Tribute Experience Gertrude Castellow Ford Center for the Performing Arts visitoxfordms.com
February 9, 2 pm–5 pm
Starkville
Starkville MSU Symphony Orchestra– “Spring Serenade” Bettersworth Auditorium starkville.org
BritBeat–The Immersive Beatles Tribute Experience, Febuary 8 144 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Memphis
Katt Williams
February 27–March 2
Memphis
Dance Theatre of Harlem
Memphis
Sister Hazel
February 22
Memphis
FedExForum fedexforum.com
February 7–8
Tupelo
Cadence Bank Arena cb–arena.com
WWE: Friday Night Smackdown
Starkville
Museum Miles Heritage Museum starkville.org
Bettersworth Auditorium starkville.org
February 7, 6:30 pm
Memphis
Sebastian Maniscalco and Jim Gaffigan FedExForum fedexforum.com
Orpheum Theatre orpheum–memphis.com
February 6
February 7, 6 pm
Memphis
Cleveland
Oxford
Parker McCollum and Kameron Marlowe, February 13
February 28, 8 pm
Southaven
BMN Entertainment: We Them Ones Comedy Tour Landers Center landerscenter.com
LITERARY EVENTS Sandy McCheyne McIntire The Moon Maiden, Book Signing January 11, 2–5 p.m. Book Inn Cafe, Greenville Chris Whitaker
All Colors of the Dark January 11, 2 p.m. Lemuria Books, Jackson January 12, 2 p.m.: Novel, Memphis January 13, 5:30 p.m.–6:30 p.m. Off Square Books, Oxford
Ringlong Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus, January 10–12
Maria Zoccola
Helen of Troy, 1993 January 14, 6 p.m. Novel, Memphis February 6, 6–7 p.m.: Venue TBD Adam Ross
Playworld January 16, 5 p.m. Lemuria Books, Jackson January 17, 5:30–6:30 p.m. Off Square Books, Oxford Bennett Parten
Somewhere Toward Freedom January 30, 5:30–6:30 p.m. Off Square Books, Oxford William Boyle
Saint of the Narrows Street February 4, 5:30–6:30 p.m. Off Square Books, Oxford February 5, 6 p.m.: Novel, Memphis Emily Greenberg
Alternative Facts: Stories February 6, 6 p.m.: Novel, Memphis Mark Greaney
Midnight Black February 22, 2 p.m.: Novel, Memphis D M DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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DELTA SEEN
Opening night for “A Little Christmas Spirit” play at the Delta Arts Alliance in Cleveland on December 7 Photos by Lyndsi Naron
The Cast: Cameron Griffin, as J.D. Morse; Dakota McCollum, as Jerry; Grosby Thomas, as Nick; Katy Koehler, as Angelica; Mary Claire Dean, as Adult Mona; Lizanne Ales, as Young Mona; Shatanner McFarland-Brown, as Kim; Naveen Barton-Hyde, as Officer Niven and Sandra; Layla Reed, as Mary; and Anna Barret Reed, as Jenny.
Lauren Powell, Hallie Rhodes, Amanda and Eleanor Povall
Jeanette Tarsi and Josephine Brown
Cindy Belenchia and Kay Berry
Mollie and Kim Rushing
Will and Brittany Dean
Justin and Nick Ales
Angel Poole and Dawn Ales
Mary Claire Rackley and Allie Rowe
Martha Johnson and Billie Towles
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Decades Party at the Clarksdale Country Club on November 1
DELTA SEEN
Beau Ryals with Gabrielle Martinez
Laurie Bullock, Mary Amelia Humber and Anna Claire Luster
Ann Fisher Luster, Jones Luster, Anna Claire Luster, Rabun Luster, Virginia Luster and Joey and Fisher Bullock
Cherie Robinson with Tim and Meri Tenhet and Curt Robinson
Esther Crumpton and John Mckee
Kristin Williams with Elizabeth Butts
Ben and Caroline Shaffett, Rhett Shaffett, Taylor Armstrong, Rhodes Shaffett, Bo Armstrong with Kristin and Bruce Williams
Laurie and Darrell Bullock
Janis Powell, Chanda Peay, Richard Powell, Kristi Byrd and Pat Peay
Jack Bobo (70), Rhodes Shaffett (60), Anna Claire Luster (40) and Laurie Bullock (50) DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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DELTA SEEN
Aubrey McKee and Anna Brittain Martin Anne Hollis Dulaney and Emily Moser
Taylor Kirker, Carley Katherine Swafford
Brown,
and
Delta Swifties attend Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 25–27
Cristen Hemmins, with friends Lee Kalynn Marley with her Carroll, Jennifer Buck Wallace, and daughter Anna Margaret Marley Olivia Hill at the Nashville Eras concert
Anne Caroline Berry announcing her pregnancy outside Caesers Superdome
Elizabeth Pilgrim, Caroline Horton and Chelsie Gilbert
Jennifer Levingston with her daughter Sarah Levingston before the concert
Katherine Dehmer and Kelsey Tartt
Addison Kuykendall, Maryn Ludwig and Mattie Sanders
Kayla Dunlap and Jane Aden Burton
Laurie McManus and Magan King
Tate Fleming from Clarksdale very excited before the concert
148 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Annual Christmas on Deer Creek in Leland on December 7
Leland Mayor Kenny Thomas and Alderwoman Nancy Jo King, photo by Charlie Lum
Sherry and Ricky Smythe
Andy and Sarah Ozbun with Cameryn and Justin Burch at the Sponsor Party held at Lagniappe in Leland
Lisa Zepponi, Miller Gerhke and Amanda Polansini
Ken, Ginger and Caroline Purvis, Danny and Charisse Oberle with Terri and Bart Purvis
Judy Ross and Mary Jo Ayres, photo by Charlie Lum
DELTA SEEN
Jane Cousino and Caroline Newsom, photo by Charlie Lum
Joyce and Bryon Nichols with Grant Egley
Tim and Pam Watkins
Martin Walker, Miller Gerhke and Johanna Walker DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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DELTA SEEN
Opening reception for A World Within a World: All the Small Things featuring miniaturist Lee Harper at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta in Greenwood on December 5 Photos by Johnny Jennings
Allison Pillow, Lee Harper, Lisa Melton and Lisa Cookston
Geney and Colby Galey
Lisa Cookston with Andrew and Christine Chaney
Charles McKoy and LIsa Cookston
Linda Newell, Lisa Melton and Elizabeth Melton
Pam Powers and Melanie Bowman
Jimmy Lott and Andrew Chaney
Dan Splaingard and Jason Gorski
Kim Pillow, Mary Dudley Pillow and Trey Bozeman
Lee Harper and Robin Person
Stephen Pillow and Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams
Ronnie Stevenson and Terrance Craft
150 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Opening reception for “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi” exhibit featuring Yelda and Korkut Akacik at the Museum of the Mississippi Delta in Greenwood on November 6
DELTA SEEN
A selection of photos by Delta Magazine readers
Gayden and Bo Howell, Korkut and Yelda Akacik with Brooks and Hannah Bishop
DSU Assistant professor of Art Korkut Akacik and DSU Vice President Leslie Griffin
Lisa Trotter Melton, Korkut Akacik and Paula Polson Provine
Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams, Floyd Melton, and Paula Polson Provine
Pillow Academy Class of 1974 50th Reunion: seated, Ganes Clements, Leigh Swearengen Russell, Lisa Carter Sessums, Tanya Tyler Carr, Gwen Pickett, Tina Dantone Rogers, Elaine Tucker Black, Ann Rutledge Kyzar Wanda Harper Clark, Tell Lucas Flowers, Betty Wood Bell, Melanie Moore, Jan Baird Harlow, Dee Dee Harmon Thach, Ilene Clanton Cooke, Mary Anne Gee. Standing, Danny Smith, Billy Clegg, Sid Lloyd, Rob White, Wes Smith, Kenny Turner, Mike Nix, Jerry Ables, Buddy Black, Hal Flowers, Mike Jones, Jimmy Hull, David Howard, Carey Johnston, Richard Crenshaw, Rhyne Howard, George Flanagan.
Bill Wilson and Ellen Harris at the Delta Arts Association annual member exhibit at EE Bass.
Marisol and Rory Doyle in Milan, Italy accepting award for Leña being named one of the Top 100 Pizza establishments in the world.
Lea Margaret Hamilton, (center) with Jen McGehee and Mikelle Perry, taking a break while decorating Governor Tate Reeves offices for the holidays. DELTA MAGAZINE 2024
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Thefinalword
The simple, complex, subtle, complicated Delta
Stephanie Patton grew up in West Monroe, Louisiana, and graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Louisiana, Monroe. After a twenty-year career with Southern Living magazine, she moved to Leland with her husband, Kenner. She owned and operated The Leland Progress newspaper for thirteen years and currently works with Delta Health System as a grants writer.
I
was born in the Delta, just not the Delta. Growing up in West Monroe, Louisiana, I only knew that “Delta” was the name of the airline company that first began its operations in the neighboring town of Monroe. At some point, maybe when I was ten or twelve years old, I realized Delta Airlines actually got the name from the region where it began. Then, in junior high school geography class, and through field trips to the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, I learned about the history of the Delta land, its battle for flood control and that not only was my own northeast Louisiana part of the Delta, but so was southeast Arkansas and northwest Mississippi. It was about twenty years later when I learned that while the three states may share Delta geography, the three Delta regions in each state are not the same. After college, with journalism degree in hand, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama, to work for a magazine publishing company owned by Time Inc. Some of the titles produced in Birmingham, at that time, 152 | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
included Progressive Farmer, Southern Living, Cooking Light, Southern Accents, Coastal Living, as well as Oxmoor House book publishing. I was hired to work in the marketing and advertising department of Southern Living. One morning, as I was walking into the office building, a handsome young guy several steps ahead of me paused long enough to hold the door open so I could stroll through unincumbered by the arduous task of operating the door on my own. He was wearing dark aviator Ray-Ban sunglasses and when I smiled and said, “Thank you,” he didn’t say a word. Didn’t acknowledge my presence in any way—no “Good morning,” not even a nod. I thought—what a jerk! So, naturally, I married him. As luck would have it, he grew up in, and still had family living in the Mississippi Delta—Leland, specifically. Holidays and special events would have us making the fivehour drive from Birmingham to Leland, and it was on these trips that I learned there’s the geographical region shared by three states called the Delta and then there’s the Mississippi Delta. Again, they are not the same. Nobody goes on about the Mississippi Delta like the Mississippi Deltans. And by “goes on about,” I mean people who live in or are from the Mississippi Delta wear the moniker “I’m from the Delta” with pride. Note that the “Mississippi” part of that statement is assumed. There is no other Delta as far as residents of the Mississippi Delta are concerned. It’s similar to how Americans patriotically identify as Americans and Southerners proudly identify as Southerners, except with Mississippi Deltans it’s more so. Way more. I knew this before we decided to leave Birmingham and move to Leland. But I didn’t yet understand why Mississippi Deltans had such strong identities with their region. Many authors, some from the Mississippi Delta and some not, have tried to
BY STEPHANIE PATTON
explain it. They’ve written whole books on the subject. I’ve read most of them. Only a handful have come close to capturing the essence of Mississippi Delta people and their Delta life. I believe that’s because, if you’re from the Mississippi Delta, you’re too close to see it for what it really is. If you’re not from here, you’ll never truly understand the subtleties. There are many subtleties, and they are complicated. I’ve been living in the Mississippi Delta for fourteen years now and have friends, family, and colleagues from Tunica and Clarksdale down to Hollandale and Rolling Fork, over to Belzoni, Yazoo City, and Greenwood, back to Greenville, and many places in between. I love it here. But I know that even with my combined not-from-here and now-from-here experiences, I would not be able to put on paper the right words to accurately explain the Mississippi Delta to outsiders. I could give the tourism pitch about the Blues Trail, the Birthplace of Kermit the Frog, or the Mighty Mississippi, and all that would be accurate. But there’s more to these flatlands and the people who reside on them than what you can put on a billboard. It’s simple and complex, all at the same time. Some of the most delicious food is available at gas stations, bait stores, and laundromats mats. Young mothers make their families brave mosquitos and snakes just to have their Christmas card photo taken in a cotton field. We live in the poorest economic region in the country, yet we’re surrounded by the richest and most fertile land. Our small towns rely heavily on volunteer first responders, but If a tornado devastates one of our communities, every one of those volunteers high tails it in the middle of the night to help with recovery. These few things don’t even scratch the surface of what makes the Mississippi Delta the Delta. And, you can probably find some of these things in other places, too, but I assure you, it’s not the same. DM
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